Agenda item

To consider the attached report by Graham Hughes, Executive Director: Economy, Transport and Environment at Cambridgeshire County Council

The Joint Assembly RECOMMENDED to the Executive Board that it:

(a)        Approves the process for developing the transport programme for the next stage of the City Deal and to address congestion in Cambridge.

(b)        Approves the process to commence the development of proposals to address congestion in Cambridge.

The Joint Assembly welcomed the success of the County Council’s bid to the Cycling City Ambition Fund and noted that it should enable parts of the rural cycling projects, considered at the last meeting, to proceed independent of the City Deal.  It also RECOMMENDED to the Executive Board that the originally tabled cycling infrastructure schemes (or parts of them) that are not funded from the Cycling City Ambition Fund or any other external source should be treated as reserve projects within tranche 1 of the City Deal programme, due to the acknowledged high risk of many of the bigger prioritised schemes, the cycling projects’ attractive value for money in terms of enabling economic growth, their deliverability and ‘spade ready’ status and the role they can play in connecting people with jobs within the specific demographic of the Cambridge technology cluster.

The Joint Assembly considered a report scheduled for consideration by the Executive Board on 27 March 2015 which outlined the proposed process for developing the transport programme for the next steps of the City Deal.  In addition it sought to identify how the Cambridge congestion issues would be dealt with in the context of the wider transport strategy for the Greater Cambridge area.

Developing the next stages of the City Deal transport programme

Graham Hughes, Executive Director of Economy, Transport and Environment at Cambridgeshire County Council, presented the report and reflected on the process that had been followed in respect of the first tranche of priority schemes.  The prioritised tranche one infrastructure programme to be worked up in further detail was agreed by the Executive Board at its meeting on 28 January 2015.  Within that prioritised programme was an allocation for programme development in years six to ten, recognising the importance of working up detail around the schemes to be delivered from 2020 onwards as well.  It was noted that tranche two of the City Deal funding would amount to £200 million in five annual instalments from 2020/21 to 2025/26. 

It was proposed that all of the transport schemes not included as part of the tranche one prioritised list be reconsidered using the same prioritisation tool that had been used previously as developed by Cambridge Econometrics and SQW.  This assessment would take account of the schemes that had already been prioritised and the planned developments emerging through Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District Councils’ Local Plans.  This work could be undertaken over the summer and be reported back to the Joint Assembly for consideration in the Autumn before proceeding to the Executive Board.

Councillor Bridget Smith referred to the contributions made earlier in the meeting as part of questions from the public with regard to rural cycling schemes.  She proposed that the original reserve list as part of the tranche one prioritisation exercise be re-established, and put forward the following proposition:

“The Joint Assembly welcomes the success of the County Council’s bid to the Cycling City Ambition Fund and notes that it should enable parts of the rural cycling projects, considered at the last meeting, to proceed independent of the City Deal.  It also recommends to the Executive Board that the originally tabled cycling infrastructure schemes (or parts of them) that are not funded from the Cycling City Ambition Fund or any other external source should be treated as reserve projects within tranche one of the City Deal programme, due to the acknowledged high risk of many of the bigger prioritised schemes, the cycling projects’ attractive value for money in terms of enabling economic growth, their deliverability and ‘spade ready’ status and the role they can play in connecting people with jobs within the specific demographic of the Cambridge technology cluster.”

The following points were noted in discussing this proposition:

·         one of the reasons for some schemes not being included as priorities was because other sources of funding were available, such as the Cycling City Ambition Fund;

·         using other funding sources would ensure quicker delivery of certain schemes;

·         the current priority list for tranche one was already oversubscribed at £180 million, in view of the fact that the first tranche of City Deal funding only totalled £100 million;

·         the public response to the lack of cycleways in the tranche one priority schemes indicated that there was a demand for rural cycleway schemes and those views should be taken into account;

·         in order to drive a modal shift, cycleway projects needed to be delivered as complete routes rather than delivered in smaller segments;

·         schemes should still be included within the reserve list and subsequently removed in the event that other funding sources were identified for them.

The Chairman asked whether new schemes could be added to the priority list for tranche two if they had not already been identified as part of the original prioritisation process that took place in tranche one.  Mr Hughes confirmed that any additional schemes identified as part of further prioritisation work could be added to the process at that stage.

In discussing additional sources of funding, it was suggested that all known additional funding streams be included in the report scheduled to come back to the Board in the Autumn on tranche two priority schemes.  It was noted that it was not always known until very short notice what funding streams were available to bid for, but officers agreed to include all known additional funding streams, particularly regular sources of additional funding such as developer contributions, for example.

City centre congestion

A significant package of £22.6 million was made towards city centre capacity improvements as part of the tranche one prioritisation process.  The partner Councils had commissioned consultants to undertake works to look at a wide range of measures to free up movement within Cambridge and connect with the other schemes being delivered through the City Deal.  Although this was not clearly defined at the moment, it was accepted that the city centre scheme had to be more radical than the other City Deal schemes, and officers had suggested themes for further exploration that could be categorised as follows:

·         more restrictions on movement, such as current access controls through the Core Traffic Scheme;

·         demand management, which could be fiscal (such as workplace parking levies) or physical (such as additional parking restrictions);

·         capacity enhancement, such as further bus priorities which were likely to be at the expense of capacity for cars in the most central areas;

·         behavioural measures, to encourage other modes of transport.

Subject to Executive Board agreement, it was noted that a high level analysis of this work on these four themes could be available for reporting to the June cycle of Joint Assembly and Executive Board meetings.

Discussing the public consultation process that would be followed for infrastructure schemes, in order to ensure the highest possible level of contribution and most balanced responses, it was suggested that this should not be confined to the summer period when a lot of the population, including much of the academic community, was not resident.

Voting on the recommendations set out in the Executive Board report, the Joint Assembly RECOMMENDED to the Executive Board that it:

(a)        Approves the process for developing the transport programme for the next stage of the City Deal and to address congestion in Cambridge.

(b)        Approves the process to commence the development of proposals to address congestion in Cambridge.

Voting on Councillor Bridget Smith’s proposal, the Joint Assembly welcomed the success of the County Council’s bid to the Cycling City Ambition Fund and noted that it should enable parts of the rural cycling projects, considered at the last meeting, to proceed independent of the City Deal.  It also RECOMMENDED to the Executive Board that the originally tabled cycling infrastructure schemes (or parts of them) that are not funded from the Cycling City Ambition Fund or any other external source should be treated as reserve projects within tranche one of the City Deal programme, due to the acknowledged high risk of many of the bigger prioritised schemes, the cycling projects’ attractive value for money in terms of enabling economic growth, their deliverability and ‘spade ready’ status and the role they can play in connecting people with jobs within the specific demographic of the Cambridge technology cluster.