Archived decisions

Item 6

Report to the

Transport for South Hampshire Joint Committee

Date: 8 January 2008

Report by: Keith Willcox, Project Director (Hampshire County Council)

tel: 01962 846997 email: [email protected]

Subject: Transport for South Hampshire - Financial Matters

Purpose of the Report

This report provides an update on financial matters for Transport for South Hampshire (TfSH) for 2008/09 and proposes a change to the financial lead authority.

Recommendations

1. That Hampshire County Council takes on the financial lead role for Transport for South Hampshire, and Portsmouth City Council the responsibility for Media Liaison and Public Relations.

2. That the other matters covered in this report be noted.

Financial Lead Authority

1. At the last meeting, the Joint Committee determined lead authorities for various activities, on behalf of the TfSH partnership: Legal - Southampton City Council; Financial - Portsmouth City Council; and Technical - Hampshire County Council. Subsequent consideration has suggested that there would be merit in aligning the financial responsibility closely with that for Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH). Hampshire County Council already has the financial responsibility for PUSH and, for reasons of consistency, it is proposed that this area of responsibility is assumed by Hampshire. Portsmouth City Council will now lead in Media Liaison and Public Relations, areas of importance as TfSH becomes an established body.

Recent Announcements

2. A number of recent announcements are summarised here that are relevant to TfSH.

3. On 4 December the Government's Housing and Planning Minister announced grants of £732 million to provide community infrastructure for the Growth Areas and Growth Points. The PUSH was allocated £7.5 million in 2008/09 (against a bid of £13.765 million) and indicative allocations of £13.9 million for 2009-2011 (with a possibility of more to come) against bids of £64.9 million. This was based on the PUSH delivery plan and Programme of Delivery and is intended to cover a number of services, such as transport, schools, health centres and parks. It covers mainly capital, with a small amount of revenue allocation. The PUSH Joint Committee is expected to determine how this discretionary grant is allocated to various projects, given the shortfall against the original bid.

4. The announcement also makes reference to the new Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), proposed under the Planning Bill, which could fund £100 million nationally.

5. The Local Transport Plan (LTP) capital settlement for the next three years (2008/09-2010/11) was also announced, on 27 November. This announcement confirmed the indicative integrated transport allocations announced last year over the three years as well as the distribution of highways capital maintenance. Integrated transport improvements include projects such as bus stations, bus lanes, cycle routes, pedestrianisation, road junction improvements and traffic calming. In addition to this, highways capital maintenance allocations were also made, to include funding for repairs to roads, bridges and street lighting.

6. The integrated transport settlements were:

For Hampshire County Council *

2008/09 £13.441 million

2009/10 £13.418 million

2010/11 £13.356 million

* - This settlement includes an allocation for maintenance and covers the whole county, so the funds available for integrated transport in South Hampshire are likely to be considerably reduced.

For Southampton City Council:

2008/09 £2.895 million

2009/10 £3.019 million

2010/11 £3.140 million

For Portsmouth City Council:

2008/09 £2.404 million

2009/10 £2.579 million

2010/11 £2.756 million

National Performance Indicators

7. The Department for Transport (DfT) has reduced the number of indicators and targets for local authorities to warrant future allocations of transport capital funding. These are proposed to be reduced from 2,000 to 198, of which around 10 directly relate to transport and a number of others have transport as a secondary consideration. Officers in the three authorities are in dialogue with DfT officials over these proposed indicators, to ensure that meaningful measures are tracked.

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