Agenda item

8.1

It was moved by Councillor Ian Auckland, and seconded by Councillor Richard Shaw, that this Council:-

(a)       notes the importance to local communities of a simple, reliable, stable and affordable bus network;

(b)       is concerned about the lack of effective Member oversight at the City Region/South Yorkshire and City Council/Local Ward level of local transport services;

(c)        calls for the Administration to seek to re-establish a City Region/South Yorkshire Transport Body and for the reintroduction of a mechanism by the City Council to give oversight by Ward Members;

(d)       further notes the increasing length of the list of local transport scheme requests which must concern all members of this Council; and

(e)       by means of re-prioritisation or re-allocation of existing resources, calls for the establishment of local based funding, under the control of local Members in order to establish a funding source for Ward-led transport schemes.

8.2

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Olivia Blake, and seconded by Councillor George Lindars-Hammond, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:-

(a)       states that at the moment, the Council has a list of over 1100 different requests for local transport improvements, of varying scale and nature, and yet for local enhancement schemes we have a combined budget of only £850k, for 2017/18, which would only fund a handful of the requests from residents and businesses across the City;

(b)       notes that funding cuts are such that Sheffield receives £2.458m a year through the Local Transport Plan (LTP) Integrated Transport (IT) capital grant, from an overall £8.6m funding allocation that South Yorkshire receives from the Department for Transport (DfT), compared with 2010 when the South Yorkshire LTP Programme was closer to £29m;

(c)        believes that cuts to funding of this scale since 2010 means that it is no longer possible to afford local structures as they once had existed and the move has been an unavoidable consequence of the cuts facing the Council and the crisis that has been created in transport funding under the previous coalition government and this Government because there is simply not enough funding to operate the system as it was in the past;

(d)       notes that the LTP IT allocation is the only regular grant that the Council still receives from the DfT, with all other allocations coming from specific competitive funding bids, and that specific transport projects which have been funded, such as the Sustainable Transport Exemplar Programme (STEP), which has a budget of £3.8m, and Sheffield Better Bus Area Fund, with a budget of £5.2m in 17/18, will see their funding stopped in March 2018;

(e)       states that, as such, from April 2018 the LTP is the main source of funding for the annual programme of transport and highways improvement schemes that the Council implements to deliver the outcomes identified in the Sheffield City Region and emerging Sheffield City Council transport strategies;

(f)        believes it is clear, therefore, that due to the now very low levels of funding that the Council has compared to previous years, moving back to a system where transport funding is shared out, managed and controlled at a local ward level would mean the Council not being able to deal with the priorities required to meet its statutory duties, in particular road safety and traffic management, or its strategic priorities to deliver growth that the city aims to achieve;

(g)       further notes that pre-2013 the Council’s LTP funding was double, whereas now, splitting the funding by ward would mean that each funding pot would be very small and unlikely to be able to fund the cost of a pedestrian crossing;

(h)       however notes that in 2010 the percentage split of locally determined work was £2.1m out of around £7m, i.e. around 30% of the transport capital programme that year, and for next year, 2018/19, the only transport funds available to the Council will be £2.4m LTP, of which £0.85m is in principle allocated to local enhancements – which still works out at around 34% of the programme, which means the proportion of funding spent on local schemes has slightly increased, not reduced;

(i)         welcomes that over the last 5 years, the Council’s local accessibility and enhancements programme has been aligned to the Streets Ahead Core Investment Programme (CIP) and Elected Members have been able to input into these programmes of work within the budget available as the programme has been rolled out in their area;

(j)         believes that without the Streets Ahead project the capacity to implement local programmes would have led to even less local schemes implemented than has been;

(k)        believes that the Liberal Democrats are in collective denial about the scale of the national cuts inflicted on Sheffield, and their culpability in this, and how this has impacted on the delivery of council services; and

(l)         notes that Sheffield City Region and South Yorkshire Transport structures are currently subject to a governance review and will take this into account, as part of this review.

8.3

After contributions from other Members, and following a right of reply from Councillor Ian Auckland, the amendment was put to the vote and carried.

8.4

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-

RESOLVED: That this Council:-

(a)       states that at the moment, the Council has a list of over 1100 different requests for local transport improvements, of varying scale and nature, and yet for local enhancement schemes we have a combined budget of only £850k, for 2017/18, which would only fund a handful of the requests from residents and businesses across the City;

(b)       notes that funding cuts are such that Sheffield receives £2.458m a year through the Local Transport Plan (LTP) Integrated Transport (IT) capital grant, from an overall £8.6m funding allocation that South Yorkshire receives from the Department for Transport (DfT), compared with 2010 when the South Yorkshire LTP Programme was closer to £29m;

(c)        believes that cuts to funding of this scale since 2010 means that it is no longer possible to afford local structures as they once had existed and the move has been an unavoidable consequence of the cuts facing the Council and the crisis that has been created in transport funding under the previous coalition government and this Government because there is simply not enough funding to operate the system as it was in the past;

(d)       notes that the LTP IT allocation is the only regular grant that the Council still receives from the DfT, with all other allocations coming from specific competitive funding bids, and that specific transport projects which have been funded, such as the Sustainable Transport Exemplar Programme (STEP), which has a budget of £3.8m, and Sheffield Better Bus Area Fund, with a budget of £5.2m in 17/18, will see their funding stopped in March 2018;

(e)       states that, as such, from April 2018 the LTP is the main source of funding for the annual programme of transport and highways improvement schemes that the Council implements to deliver the outcomes identified in the Sheffield City Region and emerging Sheffield City Council transport strategies;

(f)        believes it is clear, therefore, that due to the now very low levels of funding that the Council has compared to previous years, moving back to a system where transport funding is shared out, managed and controlled at a local ward level would mean the Council not being able to deal with the priorities required to meet its statutory duties, in particular road safety and traffic management, or its strategic priorities to deliver growth that the city aims to achieve;

(g)       further notes that pre-2013 the Council’s LTP funding was double, whereas now, splitting the funding by ward would mean that each funding pot would be very small and unlikely to be able to fund the cost of a pedestrian crossing;

(h)       however notes that in 2010 the percentage split of locally determined work was £2.1m out of around £7m, i.e. around 30% of the transport capital programme that year, and for next year, 2018/19, the only transport funds available to the Council will be £2.4m LTP, of which £0.85m is in principle allocated to local enhancements – which still works out at around 34% of the programme, which means the proportion of funding spent on local schemes has slightly increased, not reduced;

(i)         welcomes that over the last 5 years, the Council’s local accessibility and enhancements programme has been aligned to the Streets Ahead Core Investment Programme (CIP) and Elected Members have been able to input into these programmes of work within the budget available as the programme has been rolled out in their area;

(j)         believes that without the Streets Ahead project the capacity to implement local programmes would have led to even less local schemes implemented than has been;

(k)        believes that the Liberal Democrats are in collective denial about the scale of the national cuts inflicted on Sheffield, and their culpability in this, and how this has impacted on the delivery of council services; and

(l)         notes that Sheffield City Region and South Yorkshire Transport structures are currently subject to a governance review and will take this into account, as part of this review.

8.4.1

(NOTE: The Deputy Lord Mayor (Councillor Magid Magid) and Councillors Douglas Johnson, Robert Murphy and Alison Teal voted for paragraphs (a) to (h) and (l) of the Substantive Motion, voted against paragraphs (i) and (j) of the Motion, and abstained from voting on paragraph (k) of the Motion, and asked for this to be recorded.)