Decision details

To receive an update on work to prioritise transport infrastructure schemes for delivery in the second tranche of the GC City Deal transport infrastructure programme (from 2020 to 2024) and agree next steps. The City Deal supports the ambition in the Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire Local Plans for 33,500 new homes and 44,000 new jobs by 2031 by investing in the infrastructure needed to make sure this growth is sustainable. This project supports that overall vision by ensuring transport infrastructure investments can be considered and prioritised in line with those plans and wider strategic considerations and schemes can be developed for delivery from 2020 when funding becomes available.

The Executive Board

AGREED

(a)  that the headline objectives for the Tranche 2 prioritisation exercise are:

-        to prioritise transport infrastructure investments to prepare those which best meet the City Deal’s strategic objectives  for delivery when funding becomes available (City Deal strategic objectives, which include economic growth and maintaining quality of life, are set out at Annex 1);

-       to ensure that those investments support the growth strategy set out in the Local Plans and the supporting Transport  Strategy for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire; and

-       To ensure the prioritisation is aligned to wider work by the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) on the Strategic Economic Plan (SEP) and of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.

(b)  To recognise dependencies between ongoing Tranche 1 work, the Local Plan examinations, the work of the Combined Authority, the Economic Assessment Panel, the Tranche 2 prioritisation exercise and Tranche 3 and agrees that potential alignment and synergies with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority be explored;

(c)  that the previously used criteria and methodology should be reviewed and built on and that Board, Joint Assembly and other stakeholder input be sought on assessment criteria and methodology and the ‘long list’ through workshops in early 2017;

(d)  to note existing commitments to consider particular schemes through the Tranche 2 prioritisation process and confirms these;

(e)  Agrees to receive a further report in June recommending the prioritisation methodology and criteria and long list process, as well as the potential for synergies with the Combined Authority and other bodies;

(f)   officers should explore potential use of a proportion of future City Deal funding to:

·         create a potential ‘rolling fund’ for investment in transport infrastructure/ measures to unlock early growth from which a future repayment revenue stream would follow (for example from s106 contributions) and /or

·         create a fund for smaller scale measures (likely to be those costing less than £500 000) that could be bid into to allow delivery of measures that unblock localised barriers to growth and provide strong economic benefits in line with City Deal objectives.

These options would be brought back to the Board with the proposed long list in September 2017.

(g)  To endorse the outline timetable for recommending  transport investment priorities for Tranche 2 and notes the key dependencies.