Agenda item

Kamal Panchal, Senior Adviser, introduced the paper, which had been requested by the LGA Leadership Board. He discussed funding, highlighting that although capital budgets had upheld well, there was still a problem with fragmented funding and a mismatch between capital and revenue. He advised the board that requests in devolution deals for funding/ specific powers had included bus franchising and traffic management powers. In the deals announced so far, six or seven had included offers of franchising/regulating buses. Franchising, however, would not be a solution in all areas. He advised the board that the LGA would continue to call for full funding of the statutory concessionary bus scheme.

On air quality, affected areas included Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Derby and Southampton. The government intends to impose  clean air zones in these places and set a clean air zones framework for other areas.. However, this would need local flexibility to effectively deal with local circumstances.

In the discussion which followed, members raised the following points:

·         Some areas were calling for more control over rail and bus franchising. There were problems when bus operators cut routes and rail companies closed ticket offices without consultation. Members felt it would be useful to have more influence in this area.

·         Members felt that there was a communication issue between Network Rail and local government and that the relationship would benefit from being formalised.

·         On air quality, there needed to be a more cohesive approach than setting a clean air zone standard in only five cities. Members asked who would take responsibility for air quality management, as in some two-tier areas responsibility was divided. The issue needed to be resolved by one organisation.

·         A smart ticketing system combining tickets for rail and bus would make travel considerably easier in some areas and members asked the LGA to consider advocating this. There were also calls for tickets to be interchangeable between rail operators for increased flexibility. It was highlighted however, that some companies did not have the funding to do this and this was a problem that had not been addressed.

·         There needed to be major spending on transport infrastructure but there was currently not enough money for local government do this. Members commented that it was difficult to maintain local transport services, let alone improve them. It was felt that local government needed to highlight this problem.

·         Members discussed the pothole fund and asked when this would be released. Non-metropolitan areas maintained miles of road, but had little funding to do this. This had not been mentioned in the report. There was also no funding for dealing with drains and removing water from roads to make sure the network was resilient. There were frequent problems with HGV vehicles and buses becoming stuck in rural places.

Decision:

1.    Members noted the report and the work being led by the EEHT Board.

Actions:

1.    LGA officers to feedback members’ comments to EEHT Board.

2.    LGA officers to submit a revised transport paper to the LGA Leadership Board.