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ITEM EX8

EXECUTIVE –18 MARCH 2003

TRANSPORT CAPITAL PROGRAMME 2003/04 TO 2005/06

Report by the Director for Business Support and County Treasurer and Assistant Director of Environmental services (Transport Development)

1. This report seeks the Executive’s provisional approval to the allocation of the 2003/04 SCP allocation for transport to the 6 main budget headings to enable the full 2003/04 programme to be developed for final approval on 15 April. It also seeks to update the proposed provisional allocations for 2004/05 and 2005/06 to assist with future design and development work.

Background

2. The transport capital programme is funded from a variety of funding sources including the County Council’s Single Capital Pot (SCP) allocation, developer contributions, the surplus on the On Street Parking Account (OSPA) and contributions from other authorities. With the exception of the SCP, the use of these other funds is conditional on the schemes that are selected in the final programme and it is not therefore possible to precisely define the total funding available to support the transport capital programme until the individual schemes have been approved.
3. On 18 February, the Council decided to allocate the full £19.927m transport element that was included in the SCP allocation to support the transport capital programme in 2003/04. This was £4.006 m more than the indicative amount suggested in the 2002/03 settlement and it anticipated that future settlements will be around £20m p.a.
4. The full programme for 2003/04 and provisional programmes for 2004/05 and 2005/06 are being developed taking into account the SCP allocation and the likely level of other funding that will be available. It is anticipated that the total transport programme will be of the order of £75m over the next 3 years.
5. Not all of the £19.927m of SCP will be available to support new starts as there are significant commitments that must be met to support schemes under construction, or 2002/03 schemes that have been delayed by a lack of resources, design changes resulting from consultations or procedural difficulties. Some schemes have also cost more than was originally estimated when the programme was approved in April 2002. This is partly due to difficulties on site but also to design changes that have been made as the schemes were developed.
6. A major issue of this type is the cost of the Park and Ride contracts that are funded partly from SCP and partly from the On Street Parking Surplus (OSPS). These are now forecast to cost £4.497m compared with an estimated cost of £4.01m. This overspend of £0.487m can be funded from the declared OSPS but it will mean that there is very little declared OSPS funding available to support the other programme areas as originally intended, resulting in additional commitments on the 2003/04 SCP budget.
7. The overspend on the Thornhill Park and Ride contract is outside the approved estimate by more than 10% and consequently a revised Project Appraisal is attached as Annex 5 (download as .xls file) to this report for approval. The higher outturn cost was due to a higher than expected tender resulting from requirements to keep the car park operating at the maximum possible capacity while the works were in progress and unforeseen technical difficulties on site.
8. The surplus on the OSPA for 2002/03 is likely to be approximately £1m when the final account is confirmed after the end of the financial year. It was agreed as part of the 2002/03 budget process that this would be used to support the transport programme and about £215k will be required to top up the revenue funding for the maintenance contract for the County Park and Ride sites at Thornhill and Water Eaton. This will leave approximately £750k of the OSPS to support the OTS programme, including further improvements to Park and Ride sites.
9. The SCP is only valid for one year and therefore any 2002/03 SCP not spent before the end of the financial year due to slippage would be lost to the County Council. This problem was foreseen in October 2002 when the update on the 2002/03 programme was reported to the Executive. Arrangements were put in place to bring forward Structural Maintenance work from 2003/04 and, if necessary, to vary the funding arrangements for Hennef Way so as to ensure that all of the 2002/03 SCP will be spent this year.
10. The Executive approved bringing forward £750,000 of structural maintenance work but this now looks likely to be of the order of £1.0m due to over spends on the A361 scheme in Banbury. This will mean that an equivalent amount can be "deducted" from next year’s maintenance allocation without affecting the total amount of the maintenance programme over the 2 years and leave this £1.0m of next year’s SCP to partly fund the 2002/03 Integrated Transport schemes that have been delayed.
11. Even so there is considerable pressure on next year’s programme. The first 2 years programme of the Local Transport Plan for Integrated Transport schemes, i.e. schemes other than maintenance, is running behind that originally forecast due to the £3m of capital that was "borrowed" in 2002/03 to support the revenue budget, which is due to be repaid during 2004/05 and 2005/06. Over the last 2 years priority has been given to maintenance and a further £1.7m of revenue maintenance work is to be capitalised in 2003/04, requiring an equivalent increase in Structural Maintenance capital to maintain the status quo. This will inevitably have the effect of reducing the ability of the Executive to meet all the demands for transport investment but conditions should improve in 2004/05, subject to receiving another good LTP settlement, when the "borrowed" money starts to be repaid.

Current Position

12. Revised provisional allocations for each of the 6 main budget heads were agreed at the Executive on the 15 October 2002 and are set out in Annex 1. As a first step to considering the 2003/04 allocations £1.7m of new money must be added to the maintenance budget to make up for the additional capitalisation of maintenance revenue and £1.0m switched to the various Integrated Transport budgets to meet the costs of the carry forward schemes. This would give a baseline figure for capital maintenance of £7.7m.
13. This still leaves £2.306m of the extra SCP to be allocated. If any maintenance expenditure on the secondary road network is to be possible in 2003/04 (£4.6m of the original £10.6m allocation in 2002/03), then the Executive may need to consider adding all this £2.306m to the Structural Maintenance allocation. This would give a structural maintenance budget of £10.006m.
14. If as an alternative, the Executive wished to increase the Integrated Transport programmes, resource constraints on County officers, Babtie and Isis Accord will limit the opportunities to significantly increase the number of Integrated Transport schemes much above the level allowed for in the October report. However, increased funding may be required, as some of the 2002/03 SCP funded schemes are now forecast to cost more than originally estimated and some additional liabilities have arisen in respect of the A422 Finmere Diversion scheme implemented in 1999 jointly with Buckinghamshire. The funding requirements to meet the total commitments carried forward from 2002/03 are set out in Annex 2 and total £3.342m
15. This exceeds the £1.0m of SCP (as explained in paragraph 10) and the potential £750k surplus on the 2002/03 OSPA that may be available to meet these commitments. Consequently, the Executive will need to decide whether to allocate some of the as yet unallocated £2.306m to meet the cost of the commitments above £1.750m (i.e.£3.342m - £1.750m = £1.592m), or reduce the scale of the new starts programme to provide funding to meet any unmet commitments from the 2003/04 SCP.

Demands on the 2003/04 Programme

16. The programme has continued to be developed, especially through the Integrated Transport Strategy (ITS) Steering Groups, and the Executive has considered various reports on issues such as the alternative A40 Strategy, GTE, and Premium Routes that will all have financial requirements on future years’ budgets. Developer contributions play a major part in supporting many programmes and best use will be made of the contributions that are available.
17. There have also been a large number of requests for measures such as pedestrian crossings, traffic calming and footpaths. These have been evaluated using the approved assessment framework. In general these schemes are intended to be funded from the Community Safety (Transport) budget but some schemes can be funded from developer contributions or are included in other programmes, e.g. ITSs. The number of schemes that can be included in the Community Safety (Transport) programme will depend on the level of funding that is allocated. The schemes have been prioritised on the basis of value for money. It is proposed that those schemes that cannot be included in the 2003/04 programme go forward for consideration, along with new requests that score highly on the assessment framework, to form the 2004/05 programme.
18. There has been a strong response to the latest invitation to bid for a place in the Better Ways to School Programme with 45 bids received. It is considered that the submissions from the best 11 schools should be supported. There is however already a considerable backlog of measures to be implemented from the roughly 40 schools accepted onto previous years’ programmes. In addition, we have had a period when both School Travel Plan Officer posts have been vacant, and we are unlikely to have both posts filled before the summer.
19. Bearing this in mind, it is proposed that we provide funding in 2003/04 to enable these 11 schools to be included in the programme, but not actually commence working with them to develop firm proposals until Autumn 2003, which means that there would be only modest expenditure on scheme development fees during the 2003/04 year. The agreed on-site measures would then be implemented in 2004/05, with implementation of the off-site works spread over 2004/05 and 2005/06. Given the need to catch up with the outstanding work on the programme, it would be desirable not to invite new bids in Autumn 2003. Schools that were not successful this year would be encouraged to continue to develop their school travel plans and to resubmit in 2004.
20. The casualty reduction programme continues to be selected on the basis of achieving the highest rate of return in terms of casualty reduction. It is not possible to determine provisional programmes for 2004/05 and 2005/6 as accident records need to be kept under review and each year’s programme selected on the basis of the latest information. It is intended that the list of sites under investigation will be included in the 15 April transport capital programme report to give an indication of likely forward programmes.

Proposed Allocations

21. It is not possible to fund the capitalisation of revenue and to meet all the demands on the programme and keep the Structural Maintenance programme at a level similar to 2002/03. There are also continuing staff and consultant resource issues in delivering a £26m transport capital programme, as indicated by the number of 2002/03 Integrated Transport schemes that have had to be carried forward into 2003/04.
22. At this stage it is therefore proposed to allocate all the unallocated £2.306m to the Structural Maintenance programme and provide the £1.592m of extra funding required to complete the 2002/03 carry forward schemes from within the £19.927m 2003/04 SCP allocation. This will have the effect of reducing the scale of new starts and it may not be possible to meet all of the Executive’s and the community’s aspirations.
23. The consequent allocations to each of the main budget headings are set out in Annex 3. The level of developer contributions and other funding that is likely to be available to support this overall allocation are also shown to give the total level of allocations. If this is approved it is intended to develop each programme based on these figures in consultation with the Executive Members for Transport and Strategic Planning & Waste Management and then produce a detailed programme for each budget area for the Executive to consider on 15 April.
24. The Executive Members for Transport and Strategic Planning & Waste Management may wish to recommend amendments to the overall allocations once the details of the whole programme become clearer and the impact of having to fund the 2002/03 carry forward schemes is known. These will be reflected in the April report but it will still be possible for the Executive to vary the allocations between the main budget headings on the 15 April, to change the balance of the programme so that additional schemes in any budget area could be included in the programme at the expense of other schemes.
25. Revised provisional allocations for 2004/05 and 2005/06 are set out in Annex 4 that take account of the assumed £20m SCP allocation and other changes in the programme. Provisional Programmes for 2004/05 and 2005/06 will also be put forward where possible. These will be used to enable feasibility, design work and consultations to proceed so that when the 2004/05 programme is approved in April 2004 some schemes can be implemented immediately. It is inevitable that this process will raise the community’s expectations but it is not possible to deliver a programme of this scale without commencing preparation work prior to the actual year of implementation.

Financial and Staff Implications

26. The financial implications are as set out in the report. Assessment, promotion and design of schemes in the programme will be undertaken by a combination of existing staff, Halcrow, the County Council’s term consultant for transport planning, other specialist consultants and Babtie, the County Council’s term consultant for engineering design.

P0RECOMMENDATIONS

27. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

1. approve the provisional allocations set out in Annex 3 and Annex 4 to this report as the basis for developing the 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2005/06 transport capital programmes for further consideration by the Executive;
2. agree that there will not be a new bidding round in 2003 for the Better Ways to School (BWTS) programme and that the 2004/05 BWTS programme will provide for the completion of the schemes included in the 2003/04 and earlier programmes; and
3. approve the revised Project Appraisal for Thornhill Park and Ride site included as Annex 5 (download as .xls file) to this report.