Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to a report of the Executive Director for Place and Economic Growth which sought formal acceptance of the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement and Integrated Transport Block allocations for 2022/23 and the programmes recommended for delivery.

Funding previously received for Core Highways Maintenance and Integrated Transport Block (ITB) had been ‘consolidated’ into the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) funding settlement with effect from 2022/23, for the next 5 financial years.

On 1st April 2022, GM was notified of its final CRSTS allocation of £1.07bn based upon the CRSTS Prospectus, which had been submitted to Government in September 2021 and the draft Programme Case submitted on 31st January 2022.

This allocation included an amount of £175m for core highways maintenance and £82m for ITB funding for the period 2022/23 to 2026/27.

In a report presented to the GM Wider Leadership Team on 13th April 2022 by TfGM/GMCA agreement was gained of the 2022/23 interim allocation of CRSTS funding for the following elements (in advance of final agreement of the full allocations across the CRSTS programme):

·         2022/23 Core Highways Maintenance funding (consolidated highways maintenance block, incentive fund, pothole and challenge funding);

·         2022/23 Integrated Transport Block (ITB) funding.

Core Highways Maintenance Funding

A core highway maintenance allocation of £35m (covering the first year of the £175m) will be made to local authorities based on an allocation process agreed with the GM Delivery Group, the GM Highways Group and the GM Treasurers.

Integrated Transport Block (ITB) Funding

ITB is capital funding granted to local authorities for expenditure on their local transport plans. Following the confirmation of the final CRSTS award by DfT the proposal for allocating ITB in 2022/23, that had been discussed and agreed in principle by the GM Delivery Group and GM Highways Group, was as follows:

·         There is no requirement for ITB to be used as part of the funding strategy for Bus Franchising in 2022/23, and therefore it can be released, in full, for funding local transport. However, the potential requirements for ITB to be applied as a funding mitigation for Bus Franchising will need to be reviewed on an annual basis.

·         For 2022/23, it is proposed that the allocation basis for ITB returns to the ‘historic’ 50:50 between the GM local authorities and public transport investment via GMCA. Therefore, the proposal is that £16.3m of ITB is released on a 50:50 basis between the GM local authorities and GMCA.

Following discussions with local authorities via the GM Delivery Group and the GM Treasurers, it was proposed that the allocations of ITB funding per local authority would follow the same as that used when ITB was last allocated to the GM local authorities in 2010/11.

Oldham’s total settlement for 2022/23 will be £3,774,000 (£707k ITB funding and £3.067m core maintenance funding).

This will be passported, via the Council’s Capital Strategy and Capital Programme 2022/23 - 2026/27 approved by full Council on the 2nd March 2022, for investment in and maintenance of Oldham’s transport network. This is  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11