The next Open meeting will be on 7th October at TfL's Palestra building. Full details will follow, but in the morning there will be presentations showing how Keymed have helped authorities introduce some innovative safety improvements. In the afternoon we will hear about a new govenment sponsored national framework agreement which will allow us all to procure intelligent transport equipment and solutions more efficiently and at lower cost.

At its meeting in June the Committee decided that this will be the last of this type of Open meeting. In future we will have two Open Meetings, in March and September each year, but they will be in the style of workshops, building on the success of the Communications Workshop we held in Doncaster. They will include more participation by attendees, we are aiming at something which will be useful as CPD, particularly for younger staff. We will also be getting out and about - although on March 3rd next year we will again be guests of TfL, on September 8th we will be visiting Cardiff. The Committee meetings will also change, from three to four a year, in line with the CSS Transport Committee.

The theme for the March workshop will be "Designing for Pedestrians". The provisional programme will be a short introduction by the Chair, including an update on significant Committee matters, followed by a presentation about the recent Traffic Advisory Leaflet. We will then have breakout sessions looking at solving problems in prepared case studies, with a report back before lunch. After lunch we will have presentations on a couple of innovative solutions followed by discussion. We haven't decided what we want to cover in September, so suggestions are welcome.

By reducing the number of Open Meetings there will be less time to report back on our liaison meetings with the HA and DfT, and fewer opportunities for members to raise concerns. To counteract this we want to make more use of this discussion forum; and we will try to get some improvements in the way that it works in response to the concerns some of you have raised.