Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Environment and Sustainability considered a report regarding the 2025/26 Transport and Infrastructure Capital Programme.

The purpose of the report was to gain approval to allocate funding to develop and deliver transport and infrastructure improvements contained within the report.

Middlesbrough Council received City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) funding from the Department for Transport, via Tees Valley Combined Authority, to undertake maintenance and improvement works on the Council’s transport network.

The current Council approved CRSTS allocation for 2025/26 was £1.065m, specified against Incentive Funding (new works) and £2.339m for Highways Maintenance.  In addition, the Council had been allocated a one-off grant totalling £0.750m from the Department of Transport towards re-surfacing works as part of the Government’s December Spending Review.  Appendix 2 detailed the planned works totalling £4.154m.

It was proposed that the Council approved the expenditure of the CRSTS allocation for 2025/26, as outlined in Appendix 2.  This would provide the Council time to identify the most prudent method of delivering a longer-term programme; ensuring that best value for money was achieved.

The projects within the proposed programme had been identified from the Council’s ‘Future Year scheme’ list.  This was a compiled table of all known requirements and suggestions received, which were matrix ranked for their suitability against a set criterion, forming a priority basis.  However, this was also conditional upon external funding criteria, eligible uses, statutory obligations, and other implications.

The maintenance schemes were based on asset condition rating systems, and allocation of resources work to address a ‘worst first’ was used.  This was rationalised based on public safety and asset longevity priorities (such as ensuring that structures were safe).  This ensured that the Council was sequentially addressing the areas of the network in most need of resolving.

The Council also received specific allocations through competitive grant programmes and awards that were to deliver prescribed pieces of work, depending upon national / regional criteria.  Any awards for such projects by-passed the matrix scoring criteria (although this may have been used to identify the most suitable candidates) and could be awarded / was accessible throughout the financial year.  The proposals within the report included all known awarded allocations at time of approval but could be subject to change.  If required, approvals would be sought through the formal decision-making process.

A map of the scheme locations was shown at Appendix 1; the full funding allocations used to identify the projects / programmes were shown at Appendix 2.

OPTIONS

Re-assessing the project proposals – this was not recommended, as they had been identified using a robust scoring matrix and the prescribed funding criteria, to ensure best allocation of resources.  Any changes would deviate from this process and add delays to the delivery programme.

Do nothing.  This was not recommended as it would not allow the Council to allocate funding and make the necessary arrangements in advance of receipt of the allocations.  The delivery of infrastructure improvements required prudent planning and co-ordination, so approvals in a timely manner were pivotal  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2