Issue - meetings

Report from the Strategic Director of Regeneration and Environment.

Recommendations:

That Cabinet:

1.    Approves the schemes and allocations of funding outlined in Section 2 of this report.

2.    Delegates authority to the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Environment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Transport, Jobs and the Local Economy,  ...  view the full agenda text for item 137

Consideration was given to the report which detailed the Transport Programme for the upcoming 2025-26 financial year for both revenue and capital, including its funding sources and programme areas, and explained how projects would be managed within them. In July 2022, the Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed a new round  ...  view the full minutes text for item 137

Report from the Strategic Director of Regeneration and Environment.

Recommendations:

That Cabinet:

1.    Approves the schemes and allocations of funding outlined in Section 2 of this report.

2.    Delegates authority to the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Environment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Transport, Jobs and the Local Economy, to determine the type and location of pedestrian crossing to be designed per paragraph 2.2.4 following the prioritisation process.

3.    Approves the reprofiling of £175,000 previously allocated to the Collision Investigation & Prevention workstream, to enable these funds to be allocated, subject to subsequent Cabinet decision, in the 2026/27 Transport Capital Programme as set out in paragraphs 2.2.11 and 2.2.12.

4.    Delegates authority to the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Environment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Transport, Jobs and the Local Economy, to determine the schemes to be delivered with the Structures and Minor Works allocations.

5.    Delegates authority to the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Environment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Transport, Jobs and the Local Economy, to determine new schemes for delivery in Rawmarsh West and Wath wards, within budgets approved in March 2024, as part of tranche 2 of the Local Neighbourhood and Road Safety programme.

At the Chairs invitation the Assistant Director, Planning, Regeneration and Transport introduced the report highlighting this was the annual update on the Transport Capital Programme. It was year four of a five-year programme which had £6 million allocated between 2022 and 2027 and was the local neighbourhood complimentary transport programme. This was the year-to-year programme of local schemes which included projects such as the pedestrian crossing programme, minor works programme and the local neighbourhood’s road safety programme, which was developed in consultation with local member to identify local road safety and traffic projects in each ward.

The report sought to allocate the funding for 2025-2026 as indicated in table one. This would leave just over a million pounds to be allocated in the final year, 2026-2027. The report mentioned other stands of funding, £426k for highway structures plus some elements of RMBC capital and Section 106 contributions that had previously been allocated.

The report reflected upon some of the successful delivery, most notably, the first of five South Yorkshire authorities to complete the Transforming Cities programme and delivered two significant highway structure projects and three new pedestrian crossings.

The third recommendation was to re-profile funding for collision investigation and prevention into the following year. This was funding that was specifically for engineering improvements that would address patterns in the collision data. Recent studies had not identified any treatable patterns so that work would be reviewed over the course of the year and seeking to allocate funding to the flowing year.

The Chair invited members of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (OSMB) to raise questions and queries on the points raised earlier. Councillor Yasseen sought clarification on the location of the crossings identified in the report. The Assistant Director, Planning, Regeneration and Transport explained the scheme allocated for in table one was Wath Road in Brampton and there was a further £100,000 allocated to identify a further crossing in 2026-2027. This would go through the prioritisation process to assess new crossings. Councillor Yasseen felt it was hard to understand the prioritisation process. The Assistant Director, Planning, Regeneration and Transport explained there were two stages in terms of identifying and prioritising crossings. The first stage was identification, which came from requests from members of the public, sometimes suggestions came forward as a result of planning applications with Section 106 contributions. The new requests for crossings were then assessed and prioritised according to a set process, which could be shared with members. The next element was the budget considerations, which inevitably there were far more requests for crossings that budget provision, which was where the prioritisation process and appraisal heled to formulate the recommendations.

Councillor A Carter raised concern that the recommendations to delegate authority to the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Environment, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Transport, Jobs and the Local Economy did not lead to enough transparency and democratic oversight of the decision. Councillor A Carter felt the process how the requests were submitted, how they were assessed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 97