Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Colin Hitchins

There were no declarations of interest.  

Portfolio Holder decisions for pre-decision scrutiny.

Report Number ES20029:

An urgent meeting had been convened to discuss the above referenced report which looked at the issue of funding submissions for highway measures to support social distancing during recovery from lockdown. The meeting had been convened as an ‘urgent’ meeting due to the need to submit applications at the earliest opportunity. The meeting had been convened as a virtual meeting.

The Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking provided an overview of the report and its recommendations.

The Government had made funds available to London boroughs via TfL, DfT and MHCLG (Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government) mostly through a bidding process, with a smaller part via a fixed allocation. As the bidding process had already commenced, there was a high degree of urgency for the Council to submit potential schemes.

The Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking explained that £45M of ‘bailout’ funds were now available to boroughs to bid for on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis--to implement quick measures assisting people to travel safely as an alternative to public transport.  If all boroughs submit timely and suitable bids, then in theory this £45M would be split evenly between all of the London boroughs, which means that each borough would receive an allocation from this pot of funding of approximately £1.1M to £1.3M per borough.

Funding from the Department for Transport, (Emergency Active Travel Funding Indicative Allocations. Block of Funding 3) had also become available. Bromley had been invited to bid for a provisional allocation of £100k between now and September, with more to follow based on Bromley’s achievements. This funding had to be used for schemes that were able to be implemented swiftly to enable people to travel safely. Submissions for this were due by June 5th. Resultantly, after discussions with the Portfolio Holder and Members, bids had been submitted which matched the sort of schemes  outlined in the report, and which were in line with current LBB policy. It was explained that the £100k was an indicative value, and that LBB could get slightly more or less than this amount. The £100k was an initial tranche of funding to be allocated; more funding would be available to boroughs later, depending on how successful they had been in utilising the initial allocation to develop projects.

The Assistant Director for Traffic and Parking informed the Committee that a third block of funding was available from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. This was the ‘Reopening High Streets Safely Fund’. The total fund value was £50m. This was a nationwide fund and funding was allocated on a per capita basis—so the larger the borough the more funding would be apportioned. The allocation for Bromley was £295k. As LBB had received this funding allocation, work had already begun on purchasing signs and putting in appropriate markings in various parts of the borough.

A Member referred to recommendation 2.5 (The AD Traffic and Parking will maintain a list of proposed schemes in preparation for future opportunities should  ...  view the full minutes text for item 57a