Good afternoon Biker access supporters,

Last week I finally got to meet Cllr Brain Madgwick. I say finally as there delays due to us awaiting official confirmation of his continuing leadership of the scrutiny committee and co-ordinating our personal diaries so the meeting could happen.

The meeting went well and it transpired that Brian actually has a significant amount of experience having been involved in the Portsmouth transport area for years, however, this came to an end when Cllr Peter Candlish took over when he formed the largest majority in PCC. It should be borne in mind that Cllr Candlish is currently relying on a few independant councillors to get things through where votes are required as his party (Lib Dems) is in a minority. This is important as it mean he can't just rely on his own party to rule the roost at PCC.  Again, with the upcoming changes to councils in the South it is likely dramatic change will be on the cards and he may not fare so well. 

Firstly Brian indicated that he was 100% behind our cause in allowing access to Motor cycles in the Portsmouth bus lanes but of course, councils being what they are, there are processes to follow to get our voices heard. I let him know that we currently stand at 390 petition supporters and all who signed up felt very negatively about how PCC had not followed governement guidelines in determining access and most importantly had not used safety as the paramount consideration. I shared with him the poor responses from both the safety team and Cllr Candlish, which I hope he will use to gather further support around PCC councillors. 

He himself thought there were likely to be another two councillors which would be supportive of us but it's likely we will need more to show Cllr Candlish that his poor decision over this is not going to go away and does not stand up to scrutiny. 

This brings me nicely to the next step. Brian has agreed to raise this at the next meeting of the scrutiny committee in September, which will lead to further discussions amongst them on what next steps could be taken to progress our cause further. 

I plan to keep in touch with Brian as this progresses while also keeping you all updated about what's going on. 

Finally, The wheels of governance in councils can turn rather more slowly than I'd personally like but I feel that continued pressure from all of us on this may well see common sense previal. As Brian actually said in our meeting , 'we have reserved significant parts of roads in Portsmouth for bus lanes so why not use it as efficiently as we can' ?. 

I agree with his point of course and the cost of these bus lanes is party borne by all PCC taxpayers. 

Until my next update, safe riding and enjoy this fantastic summer.

James Allan