Agenda item

To receive any questions from members of the public.  The standard protocol to be observed by public speakers is attached.

Questions were asked and answered as follows:

Question by Susan van de Ven

Susan van de Ven spoke as the County Councillor for Melbourn, Foxton, Shepreth and Meldreth, which made up a large chunk of the Cambridge to Royston corridor and part of an intensely interconnected cluster of employment centres and residential areas. 

Councillor van de Ven also chaired the A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign, whose members lived between Royston and Cambridge and worked at places such as Melbourn Science Park, Johnson Matthey and Cambridge colleges and universities.  The Board was presented with two letters, as follows:

·         a letter signed by more than 100 employers, outlining the high value placed on a prospective A10 cycle network as a means of travelling to work.  Councillor van de Ven stated that cycling distances were modest and achievable, car parking spaces were running out and congestion rendered peak car journey times unreliable;

·         a letter signed by all eleven partners of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, asking for completion of the A10 corridor cycle network at the earliest opportunity.

Councillor van de Ven stated that, in 2013, Cambridge with a resident population of 125,000 people saw 190,000 vehicles driving in and out of the city every day.  She added that the situation today saw gridlock on the A10 approach to Cambridge being increasingly frequent.  She added that more of the Biomedical Campus and new housing developments south of the city were yet to be built and there were no plans to dual the A10 from Royston.  Councillor van de Ven highlighted that an A10 cycle route had been identified as a potential City Deal scheme as it would ease traffic congestion for those people currently relying upon using public transport or private vehicles.

Councillor van de Ven said that the City Deal was built around the principle of unlocking further funding and making sure that schemes were delivered in full, not in unfinished segments.  She welcomed the news that the Cycling Ambition Grant would address the route between Foxton and Cambridge, but was concerned that the southern half of the corridor was unfunded.  In her opinion this was a highly deliverable scheme, with landownership issues resolved, path design completed and local consultation on details carried out. 

As the local County Councillor, she asked whether the Executive Board was confident that it was taking into account the views of the business community when making decisions about City Deal funding.

Mr Hughes reported that additional funding had been secured for the A10, totalling £2 million, which was in progress when the Board made its decision on prioritised infrastructure schemes in January 2015 and would be used to complete a significant part of the route.  In terms of the remaining elements of the original £7 million City Deal proposed funding for the A10 cycle corridor scheme, this would have covered links to surrounding villages, the completion of the route from Melbourn south to the A505 and a bridge over the A505.  Mr Hughes stated that the Executive Board would need to decide how it wanted to take this forward, as the remaining part of the project could be delivered as part of the City Deal infrastructure programme or via alternative sources of funding.  He added that completion of the route just along the A10 without the links to surrounding villages and the bridge over the A505 could be completed for approximately £500,000.

Councillor Lewis Herbert, Chairman of the City Deal Executive Board, welcomed the funding that had already been received for the A10 cycling project from the Cycling Ambition Grant and encouraged the use of other additional funding opportunities towards delivering schemes such as this. 

Councillor Steve Count, Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, accepted that schemes such as this could be delivered relatively quickly, but he was concerned about adding this particular scheme to the programme at this stage ahead of other schemes that had gone under scrutiny.  In view of the fact that other funding sources could potentially be identified, he did not support this scheme being paid for out of the City Deal budget at this time.  With regard to the question about taking into account the views of the business community, Councillor Count reminded Councillor van de Ven that three representatives of the business community sat on the Joint Assembly, with a representative also sitting on this Executive Board.

John Bridge, Chairman of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, reported that an extensive consultation with businesses had recently been undertaken, the results of which suggested that increased cycleway provision was not a very high priority and that it was not seen as a major contributor to the area’s economic benefit.  Mr Bridge supported the perusal of other funding streams for the delivery of this scheme.

Professor Jeremy Sanders, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cambridge, was of the opinion that it seemed easier to secure additional funds from other sources for smaller projects, such as this cycleway scheme.  He therefore supported the approach that the larger, more expensive schemes should be paid for out of the City Deal budget.

Question by Jim Chisholm

Mr Chisholm made the following points in presenting his question:

·         on 2 March 2015 an Office of the Duty Prime Minister press release cited research showing that if this country had levels of cycling similar to Denmark it could save the NHS £17 billion within 20 years, reduce road deaths by 30%, increase mobility of the nation’s poorest families by 25% and increase retail sales by a quarter;

·         travel for Cambridgeshire surveys showed that the average length of cycle commutes was nearly six kilometres;

·         the 2011 census stated that 10% of commuting trips in South Cambridgeshire were by cycle, with 2,400 over 5 kilometres and 650 more than 10 kilometres;

·         cycle trips across the boundary from South Cambridgeshire to the city had increased by 89% in the last nine years, whereas numbers of car trips were relatively stable;

·         over half the benefits of new cycle schemes under Cycle Ambitions Grants were from improved health, which had big economic benefits;

·         36% of households in the lowest quintile income group in East Anglia had no access to a van or car.

Mr Chisholm asked how the Board could be made more aware of this and similar evidence.

Graham Hughes, Executive Director of Economy, Transport and Environment at Cambridgeshire County Council, informed Mr Chisholm that he and other City Deal partner organisations regularly received the statistics that he had quoted.  This and similar information was already used by officers to justify recommendations made to the Executive Board.

Councillor Lewis Herbert stated that this analysis would be used when considering infrastructure schemes later in the year, including the provision of cycling.  He added that employers and their destinations attracted a lot of congestion and said that discussions with major employers should be held to establish what provision they planned to make for cyclists.

Question by Paul Hollinghurst

Mr Hollinghurst referred to the prioritised infrastructure schemes for the City Deal and the fact that they included a number of bus priority measures.  As a city resident commuting regularly by bus, he had a particular interest in this and had experienced first-hand how unreliable the existing services were.  Mr Hollinghurst also stated that the bus priority schemes promised to ensure that bus journeys were direct and unaffected by congestion caused by general traffic on the corridor, which he felt was a strong statement.

He referred to an economic prioritisation study recently carried out in respect of the impact of bus schemes on housing and employment and cited a further study undertaken by Liverpool of its 26 bus lanes, which found that 22 of them were of little or no use as they made traffic flow at junctions worse and cancelled out any benefits.  Mr Hollinghurst was of the view that great care therefore needed to be given when adding more bus lanes to Cambridge’s network.  In contrast, he put forward Zurich as an example of a city that had successfully freed up its city centre by regulating the rate cars flowed into the central area to ensure that the roads remained free running, meaning that buses could share roads with other traffic but without delays.

Mr Hollinghurst highlighted that Park and Ride facilities featured strongly in the City Deal infrastructure schemes, but was concerned that these would increase traffic in the region of the Park and Ride sites and could undermine the conventional bus network.  He suggested a better approach of providing parking and cycling access along existing bus and rail routes.  He also made reference to the rail network and felt that enhancing ease of access to the rail network and integrated multi-mode ticketing should be a strong City Deal objective.

In closing, Mr Hollinghurst asked how the Board could be sure that the priority infrastructure schemes were going to work, whether they could guarantee congestion free journeys and whether they were the best way of freeing buses from congestion.  He also sought views on the examples of Liverpool and Zurich, and asked whether more Park and Ride facilities were appropriate or if enhancement of the conventional bus and rail networks were a better approach.

Mr Hughes responded by acknowledging the examples of Liverpool and Zurich, stating that it was always very helpful to look at other areas and learn from their good practice.  However, he reminded Mr Hollinghurst and the Board that Cambridge was very unique which made comparisons to cities such as Liverpool and Zurich that were so different in character very difficult.  Mr Hughes said that City Deal partners as part of the commitment to the City Deal were equally looking at a solution for Cambridge, adding that the Deal currently aimed to create free flowing public transport as much as possible.  He pointed out, however, that the City Deal could not guarantee a fully free flowing network and that it would be initially focussing on radial routes into the city centre.  Mr Hughes was of the view that Mr Hollinghurst’s points were all very valid, but that they had to be applied to the situation in Cambridge.

In terms of Park and Ride provision, Mr Hughes acknowledged that a significant issue to consider was whether to move sites further out of the city, as had already occurred with Milton.  When originally designed the current Park and Ride sites were located out of the city centre, but development on the edge of the city had now changed that.  The very dispersed nature of Cambridge’s surrounding villages meant that a traditional bus service of collecting people on the way into the city was very difficult to achieve from a service delivery and commercial point of view.  It was Mr Hughes’ view that the Park and Ride provision worked well for Cambridge and its surrounding villages.

Councillor Herbert highlighted that public consultation on each project would take place and encouraged Mr Hollinghurst to contribute, including on the need to change people’s behaviour in order to address congestion.  He also informed Mr Hollinghurst that City Deal partners would be in dialogue with bus service providers as part of proposals going forward.