Decision details

To announce the results of the distribution of the Local Transport Plan (LTP) Area Board ‘Substantive Highway Scheme’ budget of £250,000 in 2015/16.

Following consideration of representations received I give notice that I have made the decision set out in the attached report, and this will come into force on 18 August 2015.

There needs to be a mechanism for delivering Area Board transport scheme priorities that exceed the Area Board’s available discretionary highway budget and are unable to be implemented in phases over time.  The agreed methodology and the application of the Substantive Highway Scheme Bid Evaluation Formula has resulted in eight scheme bids being awarded Substantive Highway Scheme funding in 2015/16.

The mechanism that was approved in July 2011 for distributing the Substantive Highway Scheme Fund awards funding according to value for money and deliverability.  Under this mechanism, value for money is the ratio of the cost and benefit of the prospective scheme and deliverability is an assessment of how challenging a scheme would be to implement within a given financial year, considering technical, legal/procedural, operational, financial and public factors.  Appendix 1 sets out the Substantive Highway Scheme Bid Evaluation Formula incorporating the above.

Eight bids were received this year and have been scored using the Substantive Highway Scheme Bid Evaluation Formula which ranks the schemes according to cost-benefit and deliverability.  The results are set out in Appendix 2.

Unlike in previous years, the Substantive Highway Scheme Fund was not heavily oversubscribed and all eight bids have been successful in being allocated funding.  However, three schemes  scored poorly in terms of deliverability (highlighted with an asterisk) and these will need to be further developed to determine whether they can be implemented for the sums of money that have been bid for.  If, following the further design work, it is demonstrated that these schemes cannot be delivered within the budget awarded they will not be implemented and the allocated funding will return to the main Integrated Transport budget.

The Cabinet Member report that outlined and approved the mechanism for applying for Substantive Highway Scheme funding was circulated to all Members and Community Area Managers in July 2011.  In addition, informal consultation on the Substantive Highway Scheme funding mechanism and the opportunity to bid for funding has taken place at the Area Board Community Area Transport Group meetings since that time.