Letter published in the Bath Chronicle and the Somerset Guardian today:

Through the 10 year ~£15 million West of England CA (WECA) Liveable Neighbourhoods program each BaNES ward has potential access to £500k to invest in their community, but it comes with strict rules. If you vote in a councillor opposed to Liveable Neighbourhoods, then that money could get re-allocated to other BaNES wards where councillors support the WECA Liveable Neighbourhood programme. If the next administration opposes Liveable Neighbourhoods then all that money gets redistributed to Bristol or South Gloucestershire councils. 

So you might not think who you vote for matters but this level of individual ward investment is very much dependent on who becomes your ward councillor. So study the manifestos in detail. Ask your ward candidates their position on Liveable (Low Traffic) Neighbourhoods because an unprecedented amount of public realm investment in your ward is on their shoulders to deliver. BaNES and WECA will happily not give a ward money if the ward councillor is opposed to Liveable Neighbourhoods and will give pro Liveable Neighbourhood ward councillors even bigger pots of money to play with.

Imagine watching the ward next door invest millions in public realm improvements over the next 9 years while you miss out because your new ward councillor opposes Liveable Neighbourhoods.

WECA must demonstrate they can responsibly spend their share of the £5.7 Billion 2022-2027 City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) given to it by the Department for Transport. This determines access to the 2027-2032 £8.8 billion CRSTS allocation. Your next ward councillor has a key role to play in achieving this. Any councillor or council administration opposed to Liveable Neighbourhoods (or disagrees with the funding rules) is likely to be seen as a risk by WECA and money will likely be diverted away. WECA has to spend this money within strict rules and will be audited by the Department for Transport and Active Travel England.

So please make sure you understand which of your ward candidates support Liveable Neighbourhoods and vote accordingly! Will your community get new pedestrian crossings, improved accessible pavements, better junctions, a school street, a rat run removed, chicanes added on a road with speeding issues, and even new tree planting or spend years watching Bristol spend your community’s money? That’s for you to decide on the 4th of May.

Adam Reynolds

Timsbury

The Metro Mayor Statement (Letter) on funding rules

Dear Mr Reynolds,

Thank you for your email.

As you describe the CRSTS funding is designed by government to be spent on projects that directly improve public transport and active travel. As a region, we have been clear that the focus is on the outcomes of quicker and more reliable bus journeys, improved access to railways stations, and cycling & walking that is safer, more convenient, and more enjoyable. This will ultimately drive the  shift away from private car journeys that is the main aim of the programme. In the context of the Liveable Neighbourhood programme, this means that projects must demonstrate that their principal objective is to encourage local walking and cycling journeys through the interventions they propose. Projects that only seek to provide softer and streetscape measures without reducing private car journeys would not be suitable for the funding.

However this does not mean that no wider measures are fundable within the context of a project if they are proportionate and the business case can demonstrate their necessity. For example, the importance of making streets attractive, providing opportunities for shade and rest, and increasing green provision play a key part in encouraging new walking and cycling journeys. Alternatively, where a Liveable Neighbourhood implements filters along routes within an area that reduce private car access to a limited remaining set of routes, it could be appropriate to provide traffic calming measures on these. We recognising that some softer measures may be key in context to making the project deliverable or driving key benefits and are thus fundable.

Due to the context above, we cannot provide a list of approved measures as this will depend upon each individual project. All projects are required to go through an assurance process at the Combined Authority that is led by our independent Grant Assurance Team as part of the business case process to ensure that spend and delivery plans are appropriate to the funding. However we do work as a programme team within the Unitary Authorities and Combined Authority to give general guidance to project teams on ensuring their measures are fundable. Officers are happy to discuss in more detail how we approach this.

Yours sincerely,

Dan
Dan Norris, Metro Mayor for the West of England

BaNES Liveable Neighbourhoods Program (Case Ref: WE1026) 22 Sept 2022

Who not to vote for

I’m going to be extremely blunt here. The Tory manifesto has stated they will stop this Liveable Neighbourhood program. If you want the ward you live in to be safer and nicer, where walking, wheeling, and cycling is enabled and not just “encouraged” through a massive £500k pot of money, you do not want a Conservative Councillor. Vote. Vote tactically. Vote with your heart. Just don’t vote Tory and see all that money get re-allocated to other non-Tory wards. A Tory administration could see WECA pull all funding for this program from Bath and North East Somerset.

Your local elections really do matter (sometimes!).