Decision details

The Joint Assembly RECOMMENDED that:

1.    The Executive Board agrees to allocate additional or new resource to:

(i)    Developing up to 12 cycling ‘greenways’ in South Cambridgeshire (£480K for development work over 2 years (2017 – 2019)).

(ii)   City Access project – invest £5.045m to accelerate the delivery of the eight point plan. The need for significant resources was detailed in paragraph 13 of the January 2017 Board report. It enables the parallel and balanced progression of the eight delivery plans, including prioritisation of a parking strategy (£250K) and required staffing resources (£702K).

(iii)  Co-investment in electric vehicle charging points across Cambridge (£100K  one off cost in 17/18).

(iv) Travel audit to support case for Cambridge South Station and future transport requirements for the Biomedical Campus (£150K one off cost in 17/18).

(v)  Initial feasibility work on South Cambridgeshire Travel Hubs, including on key routes (£100k one off cost in 17/18).

(vi) Strengthening programme management, governance, strategy and coordination capacity and funding finance and Democratic Services support (£339K over 3 years, mostly up front investment).

(vii)Strengthening public engagement and communications by investing in better systems, capacity and expertise (£338K over 3 years).

(viii)               One year funding to Cambridge Promotions Agency to transition to fully-funded model (£40K).

(ix) Greater Cambridge strategic planning and transport framework – towards 2050 (£230K one off cost in 17/18).

(x)  City Centre spaces and movement framework (£150K one off cost in 17/18).

(xi)Scaling up the Smart Cambridge programme and attracting further investment in data and technologies (£1.640m over 3 years). It will focus on three aspects:(a) Better quantity, quality and use of data to improve information available to citizens, (b) Embedding digital solutions and emerging technology in City Deal work streams to ensure long term sustainable success, and (c) A collaborative approach that uses the power of digital technologies to galvanise  the business, community and academic sectors to work  together  and use their combined strengths to produce better outcomes for Greater Cambridge.

2.            That the Executive Board considers later in the year the following two indicative requests and to develop detailed business cases to enable Board decisions:

(i)    Implementation of Residents’ Parking Schemes within Cambridge City (indicative maximum of £1.0 m over 3 years).

(ii)   Scaling up original pilot skills work on stimulating business demand for apprenticeships and improving careers advice in schools into second phase of activity and investing in a wider reach (indicative maximum of £2.1m over 3 years).

3.    That the Executive Board notes:

·           The financial position, including that all partner authorities have agreed to contribute 40% of their respective New Homes Bonus (NHB) allocation from 2017/18 to 2019/20.

·           That if the proposed allocations are approved, this would mean an over-allocation of existing available resources of £4.8m, which would have to be treated as a managed  risk to be offset with either new Tranche 2 funding, other funding, or reductions in agreed schemes in future years. Given over half the Infrastructure Programme budget is forecast to be spent beyond 2020 this is considered an appropriate strategy to maximise outcomes within available resources.

·         The “Programme management and early scheme development including Tranche 2 prioritisation” budget has been reduced from £10.45m to £4.95m.

·         That further to the Financial Strategy agreed last November, all infrastructure Schemes profiles have been updated to reflect the latest estimated forecast of expenditure across the years, with total forecast spend unchanged (except in “Programme management and early scheme development”, see above, which has reduced).

·         The existing £3m “City centre capacity improvements” budget has been moved into the Operations Budget along with the proposed new funding so it is all in one place.

·         That all existing commitments will be reviewed on an annual basis to inform financial profiling and prioritisation of resources.

·         That funding is treated flexibly between the Infrastructure Budget and the Operations Budget, where necessary, to maximise the use of resources.

·         In 2018, a two year budget will be developed in order to align with external factors e.g. Gateway Review