Agenda item

Cambourne to Cambridge Better Bus Journeys Scheme - approach to public consultation informing full outline business case development

To consider the attached report.

Decision:

The Joint Assembly agreed unanimously to RECOMMEND that the Greater Cambridge Partnership Executive Board:

 

(a)          Agree, based on the considerations in the report, to undertake further public consultation on the Park and Ride options and route alignments identified in Appendix 4 for the Cambourne to Cambridge Better Bus Journey scheme as part of the ongoing development of the Full Outline Business Case, subject to a further meeting with the LLF Technical Group to further refine option 6; and the consultation including further detail on the connectivity to key employment sites and on the connection to the M11 subject to work with Highways England; and

 

(b)          Agree the timetable in the report.

Minutes:

The Joint Assembly considered a report to be presented to the next Executive Board meeting, which provided an update on further assessment work carried out on the proposed Cambourne to Cambridge Better Bus Journey Scheme and proposed an approach to the next stage of public consultation.

 

Helen Bradbury, Chairperson of the Local Liaison Forum (LLF) attended the meeting and presented feedback on the Forum’s views on the proposals.  As part of her presentation, Ms Bradbury summarised the following recommendations that were agreed at the LLF meeting on 11th September 2017:

 

  • The LLF welcomed the removal of Crome Lea as a potential site for a new park and ride, but was concerned that another site on Madingley Hill had been included in the shortlist.  The LLF did not consider Madingley Hill as a suitable location because of poor accessibility, poor connectivity, the unacceptably high environmental damage caused by a site there and the fact that it was located after congestion began, so would worsen, not alleviate local traffic problems.  The LLT therefore recommended that all options for a perk and ride site on Madingley Hill in the vicinity of the Madingley Mulch roundabout be dropped.
  • The LLF rejected claims made at the Executive Board meeting on 26th July 2017 that it was seeking to block all work.  It was concerned that projects were being set up in a sequence that was not cumulative and which could be contradictory and could result in excessive sums of money being allocated to schemes that may have a short operative duration.  The LLF proposed that the Executive Board should differentiate at the time of its approval between short term and long term measures. 
  • The LLF did not consider that option 6 had been fairly presented in the documentation to date and asked that before the next public consultation the GCP instruct officers to work with the LLF to develop option 6 so that the best on-road alternative was presented to the public.
  • The LLF did not agree with the scoring of the Enhanced Multi Criteria Assessment Framework (MCAF) which it regarded as illogical and biased in favour of option 3a.  It asked the GCP to instruct officers to work with the LLF Technical Group over the next six months to prepare the final business case documentation for the three options under consideration and to conduct the next public consultation. 
  • The LLF sought urgent clarification of the logic of choosing Grange Road on the western edge of the City as an end point for the proposed bus route and a detailed explanation of how busses will journey between the key city centre locations of Bridge Street and Drummer Street bus station.
  • The LLF remained concerned that the environmental impact of a park and ride site on Madingley Hill and the off-line 3a busway were being significantly underplayed in the documentation and asked that these assessments were re-analysed, with the possible future impacts of future proofing considered. 
  • The LLF asked that the timing of the consultation and associated documentation should be thought about very carefully.  It believed that consultation should only be undertaken until key prices of evidence/data were available, namely the outcome of the rapid mass transit option appraisal; a full development of the alternative community proposal (option 6); and a full analysis and description of the proposed route of the bus between Grange Road and the City Centre.  It was also suggested that the LLF be included in the content and design of questions to be asked in the next round of consultations. 

 

At this stage in the proceedings the Chairperson invited members of the public to ask questions relating to this item, which had been submitted in line with the provisions of Standing Orders.  He explained that a response to the questions would be covered in the officer presentation on the report.  Details of the questions and a summary of the answer given are set out in Appendix A to the minutes.

 

The Executive Director of Economy, Transport and Environmental Services in introducing the report drew attention to the purpose of the report and stressed that the Executive was not being asked to approve the  of any particular scheme.  This scheme had been one of the first schemes proposed as part of the then City Deal process and had undergone a significant amount of development over the past couple of years.  While the Executive Director noted comments about engagement made by the LLF, he highlighted that there had been extensive engagement throughout the process as plans had been developed.  He also drew attention to recent surveys of existing Busway users and potential users of the scheme along the A428 corridor. 

 

It was noted that further analysis of the proposed routes, using an extended version of the MCAF presented to the Joint Assembly and Executive Board in July 2017, suggested that although Option 1 [a sectional on road east bound bus lane running from Madingley Mulch to Lady Margaret Road within the existing highway] continued to perform well as a lower cost on road comparator, the potential to achieve 2-way bus priority along the existing highway via option 6 [a tidal, bi-directional bus lane running from Madingley Mulch to High Cross] should also be considered.  It was therefore proposed that options 1 and 6 should be taken forward for further public consultation along with a number of specific route alignments (SRAs) identified as part of option 3a.  These SRAs did not represent final detailed specific fixed design proposals, as that would only be appropriate as part of the next stage of work and would require significant additional on site surveys.  The proposals which would form the basis of the public consultation were set out in appendix 4 to the report. 

 

The Executive Director explained the key conclusions from the stage 2 parks and ride study which had liked in detail at the five sites shortlisted by the Executive Board at its July meeting.  This had concluded that the two sites that merited further consideration were Scotland Farm and The Waterworks. 

 

With reference to the proposed consultation process, the Joint Assembly noted that subject to further development of the full outline business case, a two stage public consultation strategy was proposed.  This would involve an initial stage, programmed for November 2017, focused on phase one of the scheme; from Madingley Mulch to Long Road.  This was the section of the route with the most significant known strategic issues, given current and projected levels of congestion.  It was proposed that more analysis of the full outline business case for the entire corridor and that subject to this analysis a further round of public consultation on alignments west of Long Road take place in the autumn of 2018.  This would be more fully informed by emerging strategic considerations which impact the phase 2 element of the scheme, including the proposed alignment of the phase 1 scheme.

 

The Joint Assembly was invited to consider and comment on the recommendations to be presented to the Executive Board.  The main points of discussion are summarised below:

 

  • Councillor Grenville Chamberlain was of the view that modal shift would only be achieved if public transport was rapid, reliable and served destinations that people wished to go to.  He was concerned that the site at Madingley Hill did not have direct access to the A428 and consequently any vehicles wishing to go from there towards the north or east of Cambridge would have to go via the City Centre.  He commented that the Madingley Hill site was not suitable, as delays along Madingley Road into Cambridge meant people would have little incentive to use park and ride.  He also suggested that the suite was not future proofed as it was not compatible with the aim of creating a travel corridor of rapid transport around Cambridge.  Councillor Chamberlain believed that the GCP should look to provide access to a park and ride site which people could drive to easily.  He suggested that if people were taken off the road further back at Scotland Farm there was a much greater chance of people using the park and ride.

 

  • Councillor Bridget Smith expressed concern about the quality of the paper, which she felt was paper was poorly written and contained illegible maps.  She commented on the 49 separate background reports which had been issued to the LLF a week before its meeting.  It was unacceptable to expect the LLF to deal with that amount of reading in such a short timescale.  With reference to the proposals, Councillor Smith was concerned that having concluded that the Crome Lea was unsuitable, she found it hard to understand why the Waterworks Site was being recommended.  This site was only two fields away from Crome Lea and in her opinion was equally unsuitable.  In response the Executive Director confirmed that the Waterworks Site had been included on the basis of the outcome of a technical sifting process based on its assessment against the agreed criteria. 

 

  • Councillor Smith also commented on the importance of journey times and asked for clarification of what was defined as the City Centre.  She pointed out that there was a significant difference between busses dropping passengers at Silver Street or John Lewis.  She also reported that in response to a question at the LLF Atkins had confirmed that there were no engineering reasons why option 6 could not be developed in its entirety and asked officers to comment on this.  In response the Executive Director stated that at this stage we were dealing with the infrastructure but it was vitally important as this process progressed that it was clear about what happened east of Grange Road.  A considerable amount of work was going on as part of the City Centre Assess Study to look at bus movements generally and that would play a big part in informing that process.  No doubt it would identify that there were specific infrastructure measures required to make this work but that will come from further work.  He accepted the need for options to be joined up but work was not yet at that stage.  However he imagined it would be necessary for busses to turn left and right at Grange Road but it would be essential to demonstrate that it was possible for them to do that.  With reference to the comment made by Atkins, the Executive Director confirmed that this was correct but pointed out that there was a difference in what could be engineered; because in reality you could engineer most things, and what the impact of the engineering would have.

 

  • Councillor John Williams sought clarification of the estimated journey times set out in paragraph 19 of the report.  He also asked why journey frequency had not been included in the transport criteria used to assess the shortlisted options.  In doing so he highlighted the importance of service frequency and suggested that the he was not convinced that the proposals would result in a frequent bus service that was sufficient to persuade people to leave their cars.  The Executive Director confirmed that the tables set out in paragraph 19 provided a comparison of the estimated journey times.  The Scotland Farm journey times were slightly longer as there was a greater diversion to the site.  With reference to frequency he agreed that service frequency was key but it was difficult to incorporate this into the assessment process as it depended on the actual services that the bus companies ultimately agreed to run.  From a purely objective point of view it was easier to model how long a particular vehicle would take to get from A to B.  However, if the right route was selected and it generated sufficient passenger numbers then a high frequency service would be forthcoming. 

 

  • Councillor Williams drew attention paragraph 13 of the Western Orbital report which referred to a potential site for a new park and ride interchange hub.  He was disappointed that the report looked at the A428 proposals in isolation and did not take account of the needs of people travelling to the Biomedical Campus and the Science Park as well as those travelling into the City Centre.  He suggested that the options being considered would do little to help those people travelling to work outside the City Centre and stressed the need for a high frequency orbital service which interchanged with one of the busway options from Camborne to Cambridge.  In response the Executive Director explained that while it was not possible to provide an everywhere to anywhere service, there would be key route connections to be made.  Where demand existed he was confident that bus operators would link those routes.

 

  • Andy Williams recognised this was an important transport corridor and drew attention to figures confirming that around 10% of those travelling to the Biomedical Campus used the A428 corridor, a figure that would grow as planned development around the City progressed.  This confirmed the need for another park and ride site as soon as possible.  He supported Councillor Williams’ comments about the need for this to link to key work sites and in the longer term ensure links with the western orbital route and the M11.  In response the Executive Director explained that at this point in time there were only potential alignments, not clear routes but agreed it was essential to consider possible links.  Connecting thousands of people with thousands of jobs was the rationale behind the whole scheme and this would need to be made clear in subsequent iterations of these proposals. 

 

  • Andy Williams also stressed the need for a reliable service and commented that the report did not include a definition of reliability, which had formed part of other schemes such as Milton Road.  Mr Williams suggested that it was important to be clear about this in the consultation.  He also commented that not everyone would be familiar with what was meant by reference to Cambourne to Grange Road and suggested that people were more likely to engage in the consultation if it referred to journey times to places they wanted to travel to, such as John Lewis or Addenbrookes. 

 

  • Claire Ruskin commented that it was evident from the questions being asked that a compelling case for change was not being made, with the exception of those people who had to sit in the traffic jams each day.  It was clear that there was huge congestion on this road and staff had to travel to work extremely early to get to their desk at a sensible time.  Ms Ruskin commented that it was clear that something needed to be done in the short term until such time as more radical solutions, such as tunneling, could be developed.  She agreed that it was desirable to provide a big park and ride site further out as soon as possible, using busses to bring people in from rural villages and taking them to the placed they needed to get to. It was important to base a case on data which evidenced the need for change and clarify the level of improvement it was expected to achieve as a result of the proposed options and this should be made clear as part of the planned consultation. 

 

  • Councillor Tim Bick asked for clarification of the impact of the option 1 proposals on existing and future provision for cyclists and pedestrians along Madingley Road.  In response the Executive Director confirmed that bearing in mind the current narrowness of Madingley Road there would be an impact on existing provision.  It would be possible to engineer an option that maintained or enhanced existing provision but this would come at a price and an impact on the scheme. 

 

  • Councillor Bick confirmed that he accepted the underlying strategic case for a fast and efficient transport corridor to the west of Cambridge and highlighted the importance of acknowledging that strategic need.  There were there large numbers of people living there and working in Cambridge now and there would in future be vastly more given planned developments.  He confirmed that at this point in time he regarded an off road solution as the one to beat; using buses, based on the existing Busway, or one of the other methods of transport being considered as part of the wider strategic study.  With reference to the proposed park and ride sites, Councillor Bick welcomed removal of Crome Lea from the shortlist and pointed out that the suitability of the remaining sites would be tested through the consultation process.  He also welcomed the fact that there was a clear aim to minimise the impact of the proposals on West Fields.  Councillor Bick echoed comment made by others about the importance of integrating this proposal with other schemes, in particular plans to split travelers to the north and the south as they crossed the M11. He accepted that it was not practical to bring all related schemes to the table in the same state of preparedness.  However, he explained that before he was willing to support the A428 proposals as absolutely the right thing to do, he would need to see at least how a fully integrated scheme including connections to the north and the south was going to be achieved.  With reference to the public consultation exercise, Councillor Bick commented that he was genuinely interested in hearing people’s views on the proposed options and welcomed the possibility of having his preconceptions challenged.  He hoped that others shared this view; otherwise there was no point in having any form of consultation.

 

  • In response to a question from Councillor Noel Kavanagh, the Executive Director confirmed that the timescale for securing the statutory approvals needed could take between 12 and 36 months.  He explained that the reason for the wide range related to the fact that the exact process would depend on the nature of the final proposals.  A straightforward planning application would take significantly less time than a Transport Works Act Order.

 

  • Helen Valentine referred to the results of the telephone survey set out in paragraph 27 of the report which expressed support for the notion of doing something along this corridor and contrasted this with the reservations being expressed by the LLF.  She asked if those surveyed were people living further out who would not be as directly impacted as those living in the vicinity of the development.  In response it was noted that the survey sample had been drawn from residents who lived along the A428 corridor, specifically Cambourne, Hardwick, Highfields, Caldecote, St Neots Coton, Dry Drayton and Madingley.

 

The Joint Assembly considered the officer recommendations being presented to the Executive Board, taking into account comments from the LLF and public questions.

 

Councillor Bridget Smith proposed the following amendment which was duly seconded by Councillor Grenville Chamberlain:

 

Add to recommendation 2a:

 

‘subject to:

 

  1. Further work with the LLF to produce an optimal on road solution;
  2. Detail regarding routes and journeys to the key employment sites; and
  3. Further detail on the connection to the M11’.

 

Responding to the proposed amendment, the Interim Chief Executive explained that there was now time available to prepare consultation materials and, subject to the Board approving the recommendations, this would take account of the Assembly’s comments on being really clear about what this scheme would bring in terms of links to the employment sites and links to other routes.  With reference to further work with the LLF she confirmed that there was a continued commitment to work with the LLF but was concerned that this very precise wording could impact on the consultation timetable.

 

Councillor Smith thanked the Interim Chief Executive for her comments and in response agreed to amend the wording to read as follows:

 

Add to the end of recommendation 2a:

 

‘subject to a further meeting with the LLF Technical Group to further refine option 6 and the consultation including further detail on the connectivity to key employment sites and on the connection to the M11; subject to work with Highways England’.

 

The amendment in its revised form was seconded by Councillor Grenville Chamberlain and on being put to the vote was agreed unanimously.

 

The Joint Assembly agreed unanimously to RECOMMEND that the Greater Cambridge Partnership Executive Board:

 

(a)          Agree, based on the considerations in the report, to undertake further public consultation on the Park and Ride options and route alignments identified in Appendix 4 for the Cambourne to Cambridge Better Bus Journey scheme as part of the ongoing development of the Full Outline Business Case, subject to a further meeting with the LLF Technical Group to further refine option 6; and the consultation including further detail on the connectivity to key employment sites and on the connection to the M11 subject to work with Highways England; and

 

(b)          Agree the timetable in the report.

 

Changes to the officer recommendations are shown in italic text.

Supporting documents: