Annual Report 2023 to 2024

Buckinghamshire is a beautiful county and our stunning natural and historic landscape is valued by all. Over a quarter of our county is within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a third is covered by the Metropolitan Green Belt, and we have two National Trails (The Ridgeway and the Thames Path) running through the county.

However, maintaining the county’s beauty is an ongoing challenge, with issues such as littering and fly tipping impacting on our green spaces and local communities, further exacerbated by the negative effects of large infrastructure developments.

Protection of the county’s beautiful countryside, including areas of outstanding natural beauty and green belt continues to be achieved through the ‘Brown before Green’ principle.

We know we must deliver more homes and associated infrastructure for our growing population. By managing growth sensibly and responsibly (including identifying appropriate surplus public sector property and actively developing this for market, affordable housing, and key worker housing), we can protect and enhance our natural environment and the benefits it brings. Aylesbury Garden Town is an exciting example: putting green spaces and natural environments at the heart of future development.

• A new Highways Service was launched with industry leading delivery partners. The service started after a harsh winter on the roads and a record number of road repairs have been delivered in 23/24
• Continued the successful delivery of our rolling 4-year £105 million improvement programme to our highways network including 193 carriageway schemes this year
• Continuing our gully clearing programme, to attend over 85,000 gullies in the county to help mitigate the impact of highway flooding
• Issued 87 planning enforcement notices, undertook 1634 investigations and closed 2415 cases
• 11,497 planning and related applications registered in 2023 (2nd highest number of applications registered nationally in 2023)
• Won Local Authority Planning Team of the Year at the National Planning Awards 2023, recognising excellence and best practice in all aspects of planning and environment
• We have run the second Buckinghamshire Design Awards, the first in-person awards event since the formation of Buckinghamshire Council to celebrate the best examples of well-designed buildings and places in the county and raise standards for future built development in Buckinghamshire
• Adopted the Vale of Aylesbury Local Plan Design Supplementary Planning Document
• Secured Government grants have led to over £1.9m from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for the 'Energy Doctor' scheme; £144k from the Woodland Creation Accelerator Fund and £217k from the Forestry Commission to support the Council Land Tree Planting Programme; and £576k to help improve the energy performance of eligible o“-gas grid domestic properties (via the Home Upgrade Grant: Phase 2)
• Delivering on our ambitious Electric Vehicle Action Plan to provide access to low emission vehicle infrastructure, we have secured £2.15 million to fund additional EV infrastructure, including both slow and fast chargers. This year we have also installed 44 charge points serving 88 parking bays, and started our trial of in-pavement cable channels in Wendover.
• Fly-tipping offenders have been ordered to pay £50,310 in fines and costs regarding dumping offences in Buckinghamshire during 2023/24. We have completed 29 prosecutions in the last financial year, and issued 26 Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) and 10 Simple Cautions for failures in Duty of Care by waste producers
• We issued 14 fixed penalties for littering offences, all of which were paid in full
• Adoption of Litter Enforcement Strategy to enable an effective and proactive enforcement and educational response approach to littering in the county
• 2023 has seen a 10% increase in the amount of waste sent for a reuse via the South Bucks Hospice Reuse Shops
• Over 220,000 extra pieces of litter binned as a result of our partnership with LitterLotto and the council brought in £70,000 from the external Innovation Fund
• Waste teams in Neighbourhood Services supported 8 Opportunity Bucks Action Days by delivering community clean ups and collected almost 150 bags of litter, 37 bags of recycling and 47 bulky items in 2023/24
• Our e-scooter schemes in Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Princes Risborough have saved over 6,700 car journeys and 31.7 tonnes CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) since the schemes were launched
• Delivered and opened over 5 miles of new active travel routes including Platinum Way, Waddesdon Greenway School Link, Berryfields to Buckingham Park, Aylesbury canal towpath, and Wendover, including 3 parallel crossings to prioritise people cycling and walking
• Adopted the High Wycombe 2050 Transport Strategy and High Wycombe Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP), outlining policy and priorities for future investment
• 13 sites where Natural Flood Management measures are being implemented (70% complete) in the upper catchments around the East West Rail scheme
• Our Buckinghamshire Street works Permit Scheme holds public utilities to account for their work on our road network and our 'zero tolerance' approach has seen us more than double the issuing of fixed penalty notices this year
• Continuing to hold to account HS2 and EWR to seek mitigations for detrimental impacts including remuneration for roads and road safety measures
• Across the 2150 miles of Buckinghamshire's Rights of Way network 65 bridges and 250 signs and waymarks have been installed. Alongside this 1367 yards of new surface have been laid and 120 surface or drainage issues resolved.
• 6905 Highway related search requests in relation to the purchase of property or land completed in 2023 to 2024
• Provided 520 Personal Transport Budgets giving eligible young people with SEND and their families the flexibility to make travel arrangements to suit their needs
• 4.46 out of 5 satisfaction rating from visitors to our main town and country parks
• Adopted a Parking Strategy for Buckinghamshire, which sets out our vision and ambitions for the parking across the country harnessing innovation, taking a data-led approach to review our charging schedules and our assets, and making effective use of our enforcement powers
• Buckinghamshire Council maintains the top position of a league table of local authorities who are member of the ModeShift STARS scheme and has the highest percentage of schools with a sustainable travel plan
• The Pick Me Up Demand Responsive Transport pilot in High Wycombe has carried over 102,000 passengers, exceeding 320 per day (on an average school day) and over 11688 unique user accounts created
• 49 public bus routes subsidised with a £2.05m budget during the year
• Estimated 1.13 million visitors to the Country Parks in 2023/24
• Six Green Flag awarded in 2023 for our parks: Heartlands in Buckingham, Vale Park and Bedgrove Park in Aylesbury, Hughenden Park and The Rye in High Wycombe and Higginson Park in Marlow
• 69 hotels across Buckinghamshire signed the Hotel Watch scheme
• The Street Wardens have issued 36 Warning Notices in relation to alcohol consumption, along with 8 Fixed Penalty Notices for breaches of Public Space Protection Orders
• In partnership with Bucks Skills Hub, we ran the second Green Schools Competition bringing 5 schools together to develop and pitch a green solution to a problem faced within their school