Agenda item

RESOLVED:

1.    That three Business Cases for transport infrastructure projects to the EM3 LEP be submitted, in order to bid for capital funding from the Local Growth Fund, namely:

·         Brooklands Accessibility (Elmbridge)

·         Quality Bus Corridor improvements (Guildford)

·         A31 Resilience (Guildford)

2.    That Surrey County Council’s share of required remaining local contribution [matched funding], up to a maximum of £0.612m towards the A31 Resilience scheme be approved.

Reason for decisions:

Inadequate transport infrastructure is identified as the biggest barrier to economic growth in the county. If the bids are successful, the EM3 LEP would contribute up to 75% of the capital scheme cost, with the remainder to be provided as match funding. In terms of match funding, working with Elmbridge Borough Council together with bus operators within Guildford, a significant amount of match funding has been identified for two of these projects as follows;

·         Brooklands Accessibility (Elmbridge) - the match funding has been fully funded through Elmbridge Borough Council Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

·         Quality Bus Corridor improvements (Guildford) - the match funding has been fully funded through the bus operators.

·         A31 Resilience (Guildford) - the proposed match funding is a mixture of £0.700m that has already been spent on emergency repairs during the summer of 2017, subject to LEP approval that this spend can be counted as match, and additional capital contribution from SCC.

·         If the £0.700m of match funding is not accepted by the EM3 LEP the A31 Resilience project may become a smaller project based on the funding available.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Environment and Infrastructure Select Committee]

The Cabinet Member for Highways introduced this report that described how the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were responsible for setting the strategic framework for economic growth, through the development of Strategic Economic Plans.  Delivery of plans was supported through the Local Growth Fund (LGF), a competitive fund managed by the LEPs.  

An important element of this was investment in transport infrastructure in order to tackle congestion and unlock economic growth. In Surrey, the County Council had worked with the 2 LEPs (Coast to Capital (C2C) and Enterprise M3 (EM3)), Elmbridge Borough Council, Guildford Borough Council and the bus companies in the Guildford area to develop these plans and to develop and deliver schemes that supported delivery of economic growth objectives. These partner organisations had been critical in enabling the County Council to develop a fully funded programme.

For the funding period 2018/19 – 2020/21, EM3 LEP had agreed 10 Expression of Interest projects in Surrey as described in Annex A to the report. Approval was now sought to submit Business Cases to the EM3 LEP for capital funding for three of these projects as described in Annex B to the report.  The LEP required a minimum of 25% match funding for LGF bids.  The match funding for the first two schemes listed above had come from other sources, including Elmbridge Borough Council and the bus operators within Guildford. 

However, to support delivery of the transport investment programme, Surrey County Council (SCC) was required to contribute £1.312m of capital funding, to provide match funding for the A31 Resilience project (between the County Boundary with Hampshire and the A331 Blackwater Valley Road junction). SCC had already spent £0.7m on capital repairs to the A31 following failure of the road in extreme heat in 2017. This means that some of the Resilience project has already been completed, and the LEP have indicated that they might be willing to use this as part of the contribution. If this was the case, then SCC would need to make an additional contribution of £0.612m.  The EM3 LEP would not make that decision until the business case has been submitted (planned 30 April 2018), and the project had been assessed through the Independent Assurance and reported to the EM3 LEP at a planned meeting towards the end of June 2018.

In response to Member queries the Cabinet Member for Highways confirmed that other boroughs and districts would be invited to future discussions around partnership working.

The Cabinet Member for Highways thanked officers for the work put in so far.

RESOLVED:

1.    That three business cases for transport infrastructure projects to the EM3 LEP be submitted, in order to bid for capital funding from the Local Growth Fund, namely:

·         Brooklands Accessibility (Elmbridge)

·         Quality Bus Corridor improvements (Guildford)

·         A31 Resilience (Guildford)

2.    That Surrey County Council’s share of required remaining local contribution [matched funding], up to a maximum of £0.612m towards the A31 Resilience scheme be approved.

Reason for decisions:

Inadequate transport infrastructure was identified as the biggest barrier to economic growth in the county. If the bids were successful, the EM3 LEP would contribute up to 75% of the capital scheme cost, with the remainder to be provided as match funding. In terms of match funding, working with Elmbridge Borough Council together with bus operators within Guildford, a significant amount of match funding had been identified for two of these projects as follows;

·         Brooklands Accessibility (Elmbridge) - the match funding had been fully funded through Elmbridge Borough Council Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

·         Quality Bus Corridor improvements (Guildford) - the match funding had been fully funded through the bus operators.

·         A31 Resilience (Guildford) - the proposed match funding is a mixture of £0.7m that had already been spent on emergency repairs during the summer of 2017, subject to LEP approval that this spend could be counted as match, and additional capital contribution from SCC.

·         If the £0.7m of match funding was not accepted by the EM3 LEP the A31 Resilience project may become a smaller project based on the funding available.