Agenda item

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 and then implemented was ad hoc. Views should be sought from ward members; parish councils and other organisations and the final decision should be submitted to Cabinet rather than being taken as a delegated decision. The Chair understood the point made but indicated that this was normal practice. The Assistant Director, Planning, Regeneration and Transport noted that high volumes of requests came from the public into transport and infrastructure. There was a substantial data set that sat behind that and the way schemes were prioritised, and process was not ad hoc. There was an agreed procedure for each process, scoring criteria as to how they were assessed and prioritised for funding before they were subject to a Cabinet decision to officer delegation. That officer delegation process would involve consultation with the cabinet member and would consult board members on any projects which provided transparency.

In response to a query from Councillor McKiernan the Assistant Director Community Safety and Street Scene explained the improvements to the bridge at Catcliffe was a separate scheme that had its own capital bid supported as part of the budget. In response to another query from Councillor McKiernan, the Interim Head of Transportation Infrastructure Service explained the Clean Air Fund for supporting the electrification of the bus fleet was administered by Sheffield City Council, but the Council was jointly mandated with Sheffield as part of the Clean Air Plan by the Joint Air Quality Unit. The project was to support buses that ran along Fitzwilliam Road corridor where there was the greatest risk of non-compliance.

Councillor A Carter wanted to express his view that it was important to ensure the right decision strategically was being made for the borough and that it had the right priorities. It was understood that it may be accepted practice at this Council that, that was how decisions were made but it was not something that Councillor A Carter could support.

Councillor Yasseen welcomed the monitoring and evaluation for the Sheffield Road Cycleway but did not support it. Councillor Yasseen noted that there was already an existing active travel route between Sheffield and Rotherham but asked if the Sheffield Road Cycleway was being compared with an existing route to ensure it was having a difference? The Interim Head of Transportation Infrastructure Service noted the Council did have comparison sites agreed with the Department for Transport (DfT) as part of the programme as part of the programme wide monitoring and evaluations, both in Rotherham, across South Yorkshire and across the country to enable the government to understand what the difference had been on the schemes relative to places where no schemes had taken place. Regarding the Collision Investigation Prevent Programme, it was explained that where schemes had been introduced and there was a need to consider the impact of those schemes on collision record, that would be picked up, either in the monitoring of those schemes on collision records or picked up in the monitoring and evaluation work for all those projects or as part of stage four road safety audit process.

The Interim Head of Transportation Infrastructure Service explained that the collision investigation and prevention activity was for schemes where locations were identified where there had been a number of collisions in the same location, on the same street. The Council was looking to review its road safety practices to understand what the best process for improving the casualty performance going forward.

Resolved: That the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board supported the 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, Page 39 Agenda Item 6 Page 2 of 11 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.

Further actions that arose from discussions were that:

1. Information on the process of how new crossings were assessed and prioritised be provided to member of OSMB.