Agenda item - A428/A1303 Madingley Road Corridor Scheme options and approval to consult

To consider the attached report by Graham Hughes, Executive Director (Cambridgeshire County Council).

The Executive Board:

(1) NOTED the findings from the initial engineering assessment and technical study.

(2) APPROVED the public consultation on the options set out in the report.

(3) AGREED to receive a report on consultation later this year on a preferred option, or options, for full business case development.

(4) AGREED that the public consultation should:

(i) include a question asking about the public’s views of the optimum location for the new Park and Ride at Madingley Mulch;

(ii) contain a discussion or analysis of the benefits/disadvantages of retaining/closing the existing Madingley Road Park and Ride site.

(5) AGREED that cycling and pedestrian provision would be made in the case of each option and its scope in each case would be included as part of the consultation process.

(6) AGREED, in support of the Joint Assembly’s comments regarding the encouragement of modal shift, that reliability and journey time were both very important considerations.

(7) AGREED to ask officers to investigate the possibility of uploading responses to the consultation onto the County Council’s website, in order that they could be viewed online during the consultation process.

(8) AGREED to ask officers to review the timetable set out in the report with a view to being more aspirational with regard to the scheme completion date, also ensuring that the Board received early notification of minimum delivery dates for each stage not being reached.

(9) AGREED to ask officers to provide more detailed information on the role, remit and makeup of the Local Liaison Forum proposed to be established to exchange information and ideas on the project with local County, City and District Members, parish representatives and other key stakeholders.

(10) AGREED, in principle, that Cambridge University (as freeholder of the existing Madingley Road Park and Ride site) should be encouraged to discuss with the City Council’s Planning Department how the site might be developed for residential development (including for affordable housing and all in a manner that reflected the aims and aspirations of the Greater Cambridge City Deal) if the Park and Ride facility was closed in the context of the opening of a new site at Madingley Mulch and if the existing site was to revert back to the University.

(11) AGREED to instruct officers to submit a report to the October cycle of Joint Assembly and Executive Board meetings containing an initial and high-level appraisal of the technical implications and costs of creating bus-only slip-roads at:

(i) the M11 junction 13: when turning off the A1303 (going east) onto the M11 (going south);

(ii) the M11 junction 13: creating a bus lane alongside the existing sliproad off the M11, which would get priority treatment at the traffic lights;

(iii) the M11 junction 11: turning off the M11 (going south) between the existing farm and footbridge and the existing sliproad, then going round the corner of the farmland at Trumpington Meadows, running parallel to (and west of) Trumpington Road, and entering the Trumpington Road Park and Ride thence joining up to the Guided Busway.

Consideration was given to a report which set out the high-level options that had emerged from the initial stages of the A428/A1303 corridor technical study.

Stuart Walmsley, Head of Major Infrastructure Delivery at Cambridgeshire County Council, presented the report which reflected on wide-ranging technical work that had identified six shortlisted options now proposed for public consultation. Three of the options were for the east of Madingley Mulch, with the remaining three relevant to the west of Madingley Mulch. The report set out conceptual plans and commentary for each option, together with a consultation strategy for consideration.

Councillor Tim Bick, Chairman of the Joint Assembly, provided the Board with a report following consideration of this issue at the meeting of the Assembly held on 3 June 2015. He reported that the Assembly had received questions from nine members of the public about this proposed scheme indicating points of view which, though answered at the meeting, represented a number of themes of which Assembly Members felt should be highlighted to the Board as follows:

· the funding of tranches 2 and 3 of the City Deal could be critical in enabling the Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire Local Plans, given that it would make a key contribution to the sustainability of new and enlarged settlements detached from the city, about which the Planning Inspector had expressed concern;

· consultation on the scheme could be premature, as the sustainability of the new and expanded settlements such as those envisaged along the A428 corridor appeared to have been challenged by the Planning Inspectors examining the two Local Plans. It was the Assembly’s view that no inconsistency arose in relation to the kind of improvement represented by option 1 because it was needed even in current conditions. Greater clarity about the Local Plans was likely to be available before a decision was made about the funding improvements represented by options 2 as the funding had been deferred to tranche two of the programme.

Councillor Lewis Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Board, responded to these two points which he summarised as being the securing of funding for further tranches of the City Deal and the interrelationship between the City Deal and the City and District Councils’ Local Plans. He was of the view that the Board had made its decision around the programme for tranche one of the funding believing the schemes within it to be deliverable that would meet the necessary objectives. If the funding from tranches two or three did not materialise, the partner Councils would be required to fund schemes themselves. Councillor Herbert reminded the Board, therefore, that it fell on partners to ensure delivery of these immediate schemes within the tranche one programme.

In respect of the Local Plans, Councillor Herbert said that the Inspectors had suspended the examination to request that the two Councils provide more information on housing numbers, sustainability and the balancing of development on the edge of the city and how that impacted on the evidence base. In terms of the impact of the City Deal on the Local Plans, he indicated that if no transport solutions were in place then this itself would raise a question of unsustainability, which was why the principle of addressing the A428 and Madingley Road Corridor was so important.

Councillor Bick reported that the Joint Assembly’s consideration and discussion echoed a number of the points raised in the public statements about the strengths and weaknesses of particular options, but it was the Joint Assembly’s overwhelming view that all options should go forward for consultation to enable public input before further filtering was undertaken. He added that, as the City Deal presented a rare opportunity to make a significant investment in this area which it was hoped would deliver an enduring benefit, it was important to ensure that bold options were included for evaluation. The Joint Assembly therefore made a number of recommendations as set out below.

The Joint Assembly recommended that the Executive Board should:

(i) note the findings from the initial engineering assessment and technical study;

(ii) approve the public consultation on the options as set out in the report;

(iii) agree to receive a report on consultation later this year on a preferred option, or options, for full business case development.

The Executive Board supported this recommendation.

Councillor Bick explained that the Assembly noted requests for greater clarity about the detail of the options. However, it was understood from officers that the proposed initial consultation was to enable the selection of a concept and that further investment of resources in detailed design work would not be undertaken until a concept had been selected, at which stage a further waive of consultation would be undertaken. Accordingly, the options currently proposed for consultation were regarded as representative of the means by which better priority for bus transport could be secured, in order to stimulate public input which could include suggested hybrids or further alternatives of the options presented. The Assembly sought the Board’s endorsement of this understanding and felt that emphasis should be made in the consultation exercise to ensure that this context was fully explained to the public.

Councillor Herbert confirmed that this approach would be followed.

Councillor Bick reported that, in making an exception to the above, the Assembly agreed two recommendations to the Board in relation to the location of a new Park and Ride site near to the Madingley Mulch roundabout and the future of the existing Madingley Road park and ride site, as follows:

That the Assembly recommends to the Executive Board that the public consultation should:

(i) include a question asking about the public’s views on the optimum location for the new Park and Ride at Madingley Mulch;

(ii) contain a discussion or analysis of the benefits/disadvantages of retaining/closing the existing Madingley Road Park and Ride site.

In relation to (i) above, the Assembly also discussed the possibility of better indicating the conceptual status of a new Park and Ride site at Madingley Mulch by not marking out on a map a specific site or sites. With regards to (ii) above, the Assembly discussed the possibility of satisfying its recommendation by simply explaining the assumption at this stage of retaining the existing Madingley Road Park and Ride site.

Graham Hughes, Executive Director of Economy, Transport and Environment at Cambridgeshire County Council, reported that, since the meeting of the Joint Assembly, officers had reflected on the Assembly’s proposal and now recommended its inclusion as part of the consultation.

The Executive Board supported recommendations (i) and (ii), as above.

Councillor Bick reported that the Assembly discussed the relationship of the proposed online and offline busway options to cycling provision. It was understood at the meeting of the Assembly that cycling and pedestrian provision would be made in the case of each option and its scope in each case would be indicated as part of the consultation process. The Joint Assembly sought the Board’s agreement to this approach.

The Executive Board supported this approach.

The Assembly also identified in its discussions that reliability was as important as journey time for the choices people made about mode of transport. As the approach underlying the City Deal investments was to encourage modal shift to public transport, officers agreed to ensure that this was adequately reflected as a variable against each of the options going into consultation. The Joint Assembly sought the Board’s agreement to this approach.

Councillor Steve Count, Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, made the point that reliability and journey time were both very important considerations. The Executive Board therefore supported the approach proposed by the Joint Assembly, subject to making it clear that reliability and journey time were both very important considerations.

The Assembly also discussed the overall project timetable incorporated in the report and, noting its length, wished to pressure-test it to see if it could be accelerated. The Assembly therefore recommended that officers should be instructed to produce a revised timetable based on ‘approval of the City Deal Executive Board final scheme’ being in May or October 2016, rather than December 2016 as currently shown, and explain what would need to change to achieve this timetable for the Executive Board to consider.

Councillor Herbert agreed that officers should be asked to investigate the potential of a more aspirational timetable in terms of the scheme completion date.

Mr Hughes indicated that he would review the timetable, but highlighted the stages of the process that needed to be followed with a scheme as significant as this, including the timeframe necessary to allow for public consultation. He emphasised that it was already a challenging programme as it stood and did not want expectations to be raised.

Councillor Count made reference to the imminent appointment of the City Deal Director who he felt should be responsible for ensuring that the delivery of schemes was in accordance with agreed timescales and that the Board should be informed as early as possible should delivery dates for each stage of a scheme not be reached.

In relation to the process of developing detailed designs following the initial public consultation, the Assembly recommended that the public consultation should establish an officer Project Board to develop the project and proposals agreed by the Executive Board, which would sit alongside a Local Liaison Forum to be established (as with other major projects) consisting of local County, City and District members, parish representatives and other key stakeholders, to exchange information and ideas on the project and ensure there was full information as it progressed. In addition to this, it may be appropriate to establish a task and finish Member Working Group for particular issues and the need for this should be established on an ad hoc basis.

John Bridge, Chairman of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, felt that the establishment of a Local Liaison Forum would create an additional layer of unhelpful bureaucracy, considering there was a Joint Assembly already in place and that there would be two public consultations carried out on the scheme.

Mr Hughes explained that, in his experience of managing major transport infrastructure schemes, it was extremely useful to have liaison in this format with local Members and other key stakeholders. It ensured that information was shared regularly and helped identify issues or problems at an early stage, assisting with the delivery of schemes in accordance with set timescales. He made it clear that these Liaison Forums would were not decision-making bodies and would only be in place to facilitate an exchange of information at a local level.

Councillor Ray Manning, Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, agreed with Mr Bridge and was deeply concerned that the establishment of a Local Liaison Forum would actually cause the project to slip behind schedule because of additional bureaucracy.

It was agreed that officers be asked to provide more detailed information on the role, remit and makeup of the Local Liaison Forum.

John Bridge and Councillor Ray Manning requested that it be recorded in the minutes that they did not support the establishment of a Local Liaison Forum.

The Assembly considered a number of other matters tangential to the launch of consultation on improvements to the A428 and Madingley Road Corridor Scheme and recommended that it should encourage Cambridge University (the freeholder of the existing Madingley Road Park and Ride site) to discuss with the City Council’s Planning Department how the site might be developed for residential development (including for affordable housing, and all in a manner that reflects the aims and aspirations of the Greater Cambridge City Deal) if the Park and Ride was closed in the context of the opening of a new site at Madingley Mulch and if the existing site was to revert back to the University.

The Executive Board supported this recommendation, in principle.

The Joint Assembly recommended that it should instruct officers to bring a report to the September cycle of Joint Assembly and Executive Board meetings containing an initial and high-level appraisal of the technical implications and costs of creating bus-only slip-roads:

(i) at M11 junction 13: when turning off the A1303 (going east) onto the M11 (going south);

(ii) at the M11 junction 13: creating a bus lane alongside the existing sliproad off the M11, which would get priority treatment at the traffic lights;

(iii) at M11 junction 11: turning off the M11 (going south) between the existing farm and footbridge and the existing sliproad, then going round the corner of the farmland at Trumpington Meadows, running parallel to (as west of) Trumpington Road, and entering the Trumpington Road Park and Ride thence joining up to the Guided Busway.

It was noted that this would be a very high-level piece of work, which could be reported to the October cycle of meetings, and that it would be separate to the A428 and Madingley Road Corridor Scheme.

Councillor Count was concerned that this piece of work was being considered at this stage when it had not been evaluated amongst other schemes that were initially considered as part of the tranche one programme.

The Executive Board agreed that this was a significant part of the corridor and, in view of the high-level nature of the piece of work, supported the recommendation.

Discussion ensued on the consultation process itself, in terms of where it would be advertised and how far-reaching it would be in terms of those people asked to provide a response, accepting that the A428 and Madingley Road Corridor impacted people living outside of the Greater Cambridge area. Mr Hughes reassured the Board that the consultation would be advertised on the County Council’s website in the usual way that all other major transport infrastructure schemes were. Councillor Herbert made it clear that the consultation would be open to anyone.

It was suggested that responses to the consultation should be published online, enabling people to view responses that had already been received before making a submission themselves. The Board asked officers to investigate this approach and it was noted that this would only be able to occur for those responses that had been submitted electronically via the County Council’s consultation website.

The Chairman summarised that the Executive Board: