Question:
The previous Conservative administration allocated £20 million some years ago into an anti congestion budget. The purpose of this was to improve vehicle flow through key road bottlenecks to ease congestion. Officers had worked up a scheme to improve traffic flow on London Road and were planning to move onto several other schemes across the borough. It is my understanding that £12 million was unallocated at the time of the May election and available for this work. I have been advised by officers that this budget has been renamed the active travel budget. Can you tell me which of the original schemes planned at the time of the local election are still progressing and which new active travel schemes have been incorporated in this programme.
Minutes:
The previous Conservative administration allocated £20 million some years ago into an anti-congestion budget. The purpose of this was to improve vehicle flow through key road bottlenecks to ease congestion. Officers had worked up a scheme to improve traffic flow on London Road and were planning to move onto several other schemes across the Borough. It is my understanding that £12 million was unallocated at the time of the May election and available for this work. I have been advised by officers that this budget has been renamed the active travel budget. Can you tell me which of the original schemes planned at the time of the local election are still progressing and which new active travel schemes have been incorporated in this programme?
Answer
Whilst £20m may have been allocated by the previous Conservative administration the money is not available without furthering the Council’s borrowings. As such the value being referenced is not available and a significantly lesser amount is now being worked with under the new heading ‘Active Travel and Bus Priority’
Schemes that had previously been identified and which we believe will serve the best benefit to all users of the highway network, is by targeting the Department for Transport’s own findings that nearly 60% of short journeys are taken by car and could be taken by active travel (walking and cycling) linking to this Council’s emerging Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan or public transport bus and rail linking with this Council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan which is currently being amended.
With a good standard of infrastructure in place many of these short journeys can be transferred from the car leaving spare capacity on the network for essential journeys such as freight as well as car journeys that cannot be transferred to active travel or public transport.
However, some schemes can be revised and converted to the active travel and bus priority and these include the likes of Active Travel (Walking / Cycling) on London Road between Binfield Road and Seaford Road junctions, and also Active Travel and bus priority measures at the Binfield Road junction with improvements to the signals. Measures are also being considered at Winnersh Crossroads with a signal optimisation scheme to reflect the new traffic patterns as a result of the Winnersh Relief Road, these measures could also including bus priority and improved pedestrian and cycle connectivity.
As highlighted already tonight, the Council finds itself under the severest of financial pressures as do most other local authorities and must look at all aspects to balance its books.
Supplementary Question
You mentioned a different amount to the amount I quoted, I wonder if you could clarify what the amount was? You also mentioned some schemes which were moving forward, one at the Twyford crossroads. It was confirmed to me by an officer in June as being considered – is that on? And, when can we expect a formal announcement on this?
Supplementary Answer
As I said previously, the amount of money which you thought was available is not, because that would require further borrowing on the Capital budget, which we cannot afford. There is a smaller amount in the Active Travel and Bus Priority budget which is currently going through the MTFP iterations. I will come back to you on Twyford crossroads. I have given you a flavour of some of the schemes in the programme.