Agenda item

That Authority be delegated to the Strategic Director for Environment and Infrastructure, in consultation with the Deputy Leader, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Flooding and the Director of Finance to: 

1.         agree the schemes and the precise amount of the Surrey County Council contribution, based on the proposals set out in Table 1, of the submitted report.

2.         substitute and/ or omit any schemes listed in Table 1, of the submitted report, from submission to the LEPs, if so warranted by developments at that time.

Reasons for Decisions:

Transport infrastructure schemes are a key element of the Strategic Economic Plan (SEPs), submitted by the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to Government in March 2014, which sets out how they will support the economic development and regeneration of their areas. The proposed schemes will deliver a range of benefits to Surrey’s residents, including reduced congestion, improved journey time reliability, enhanced safety, and improved access for cyclists, pedestrians and buses, as well as enabling economic development and regeneration.

Under the funding arrangements, local partners are required to provide a local contribution to the schemes to reflect the local benefits that will be provided.

Therefore if the Cabinet wishes these schemes to proceed to business case submission, the Cabinet will need to confirm that this local contribution is available.

This is the third tranche of schemes to be funded from the Local Growth Deal. The precise amount of contribution that the County Council will need to make will be finalised once discussions with relevant Borough Leaders/ Chief Executives have been completed, in accordance with the approach presented to the Cabinet at the meeting of 23 September 2014.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Economic Prosperity, Environment and Highways Scrutiny Board]

The Deputy Leader reminded Cabinet that on 23 September 2014, they approved arrangements for local contribution for the first tranche of three schemes, of the 2015-16 SEP programme and on 14 December 2014, approval was given for local contribution for the second tranche of seven schemes of the same programme.

He said that approval was now being sought for arrangements for local contributions for the third tranche of four schemes, for the 2015-16 SEP programme. The total estimated cost for these four schemes was just under £22m and the Authority was seeking Local Growth Fund (LGF) contribution from the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) of £17m. Currently, the County Council contribution was approximately £3.3m, with partner contribution from the Boroughs and Districts of £1.4m, which could increase, as discussions were still in progress with the partners.

The business cases for the Enterprise M3 LEP needed to be submitted by 29 January 2016; and for the Coast to Capital LEP by the end March 2016 and construction of some of these schemes could commence during 2016/17.

He drew Members attention to Table 1 – Schemes featured in the Third Tranche and Contribution Status – and said that two of the Resilience Schemes could be met from the Operation Horizon maintenance programme.

Finally, he asked Cabinet to agree a minor amendment to recommendation (1), namely to include after ‘agree’ ‘the schemes and’ so that it read ‘agree the schemes and the precise amount....’

The Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Flooding confirmed his support for the schemes and said that he considered that Boroughs and Districts were working well with the County Council in this area and that the fruition of the schemes would be a good outcome for Surrey residents.

The Cabinet Member for Wellbeing and Health drew attention to the climate change / carbon emission implications and said that she hoped the relevant boroughs would find the funding for their contribution for the Epsom – Banstead STP scheme.

RESOLVED (as amended):

That Authority be delegated to the Strategic Director for Environment and Infrastructure, in consultation with the Deputy Leader, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Flooding and the Director of Finance to: 

1.         agree the schemes and the precise amount of the Surrey County Council contribution, based on the proposals set out in Table 1 in the submitted report.

2.         substitute and/or omit any schemes listed in Table 1in the submitted report from submission to the Local Enterprise Partnerships, if so warranted by developments at that time.

Reasons for Recommendations:

Transport infrastructure schemes are a key element of the Strategic Economic Plan (SEPs), submitted by the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to Government in March 2014, which sets out how they will support the economic development and regeneration of their areas. The proposed schemes will deliver a range of benefits to Surrey’s residents, including reduced congestion, improved journey time reliability, enhanced safety, and improved access for cyclists, pedestrians and buses, as well as enabling economic development and regeneration.

Under the funding arrangements, local partners are required to provide a local contribution to the schemes to reflect the local benefits that will be provided.

Therefore if the Cabinet wishes these schemes to proceed to business case submission, the Cabinet will need to confirm that this local contribution is available.

This is the third tranche of schemes to be funded from the Local Growth Deal. The precise amount of contribution that the County Council will need to make will be finalised once discussions with relevant Borough Leaders/Chief Executives have been completed, in accordance with the approach presented to the Cabinet at the meeting of 23 September 2014.