Written evidence from Oxfordshire County
Council (TE 51)
Have the UK's economic conditions materially changed
since the Eddington Transport Study and, if so, does this affect
the relationship between transport spending and UK economic growth?
Yes - in the general sense that the economy has experienced
a recession and, more specifically for transport, with the subsequent
squeeze on public sector funding which is leading to significant
and direct reductions in the funding available for transport schemes,
particularly capital funding. Owing to the need to protect highway
assets and not create problems for the future, the funding that
is available is being prioritised for highway maintenance, leaving
little if anything for new schemes in the short term.
Because of this, transport investment needs to be
much more closely matched to delivering growth. Securing long
term sustainable economic development requires sustained, long
term public investment - not least to stimulate private sector
investment. To take Transport as an example, investing in effective
transport links is absolutely vital in enabling recovery from
recession and post-recession growth, not something that should
be considered as only being affordable as a result of recovery.
The development of a Local Enterprise Partnership
for Oxfordshire, which has now been submitted as a bid, includes
working with adjoining local authorities and, where they exist,
Local Enterprise Partnerships, to promote and secure delivery
of strategic enabling infrastructure. In particular it will champion
investment in:
(i) East-West Rail, as a key piece of enabling
infrastructure for economic and housing growth;
(ii) Improvements in the capacity of Oxford Station
as part of a comprehensive improvement strategy for the Great
Western Main Line;
(iii) Measures to address bottlenecks on the
A34 corridor.
(iv) Improvements to the transport network around
the Abingdon / Didcot area to support the development of the world
leading Science Vale UK proposals.
What type of transport spending should be prioritised,
in the context of an overall spending reduction, in order best
to support regional and national economic growth?
Priority should be considered where:
- spending unlocks matched or partnership funding,
especially from the private sector;
- there is an opportunity to develop sustainable,
low carbon solutions for the long term - rail projects for example
- schemes or measures meet regional / national
as well as local objectives - the Access to Oxford project, in
terms of the benefits it would realise on the A34 and parallel
rail corridors, is a good example of this
- strategic links to growth areas can be funded
and delivered - particularly where this enables better connections
between housing and employment - in particular the Science Vale
UK area where infrastructure improvements are essential to its
delivery.
Oxfordshire is the most rural county in the South
East. This may be heretical thinking to a civil service organised
in silos but transport issues in Oxfordshire could be partly alleviated
by the presence of a comprehensive high speed Broadband network
across the county. People could work and communicate more effectively
without the need to travel as much. We suggest that thought should
be given to regarding Broadband provision as including an element
of transport within it.
How should the balance between revenue and capital
expenditure be altered?
With significantly reduced levels of capital, greater
levels of revenue funding are needed to enable sufficient emphasis
to be placed on Behaviour Change and Travel Planning initiatives,
as a complement to development of key infrastructure and an aide
to carbon reduction. More systematically involving and engaging
with businesses and other key Stakeholders in this area will enable
an overall approach to transport investment combining infrastructure,
services, and travel behaviour to be "owned" by all
parties.
On a more general point, while the economic conditions
may have changed, effective transport planning still requires
relatively long lead times that we should be planning now for
post-recession and schemes that support growth.
In addition the loss of capital funds for planned
structural highway maintenance will lead to a deterioration of
our asset and place additional pressure on reduced revenue funds.
A poorer quality of highway will no doubt have repercussions in
terms of economic growth and attractiveness for investment.
Are the current methods for assessing proposed
transport schemes satisfactory?
Historically there has been too great an emphasis
placed on the "narrow" transport benefits of schemes
- particularly reductions in journey time savings (which have
also tended to favour highway based solutions). There is a need
to ensure that the broad benefits of any transport scheme are
captured - not just in terms of delivering economic growth and
bringing in private investment, but also in meeting other (e.g.
environmental / carbon, health) benefits. Whilst this is a notoriously
difficult area to build a cost / benefit model it is essential
to ensure that the limited resources go to the projects that deliver
the greatest overall benefit.
How will schemes be planned in the absence of
regional bodies and following the revocation and abolition of
regional spatial strategies?
We believe that assessment of schemes should take
place somewhere between city/county and country. Although planning
has been, and continues to be, effective at an Oxfordshire level,
there is concern that the abolition of regional planning bodies
implies further centralisation of transport planning in direct
contrast to the government's localism agenda. It is important
that there is an overall view taken at some form of intermediate
level, both to take proper account of sub-nationally significant
schemes (for example East West Rail) and to allow effective prioritisation
of strategic schemes. In the South East, councils have proved
their ability to come together to plan sub-national needs in a
mature way and to take tough decisions about limited resources.
There are choices as to which form a sub-national process could
most effectively take
One example of how funding may be allocated in this
way is that, where a Local Enterprise Partnership has been established
and approved by Government, we believe there is scope for Government
to operate the Regional Growth fund on the basis of indicative
allocations, using a funding formula that would need to reflect
needs and opportunities within the individual partnership area.
Without some form of sub-national assessment the
system would have to revert to the situation pre-regional bodies
where DfT had to assess and compare schemes from widely varying
situations. Clearly the situation with a large public transport
scheme in a large metropolitan city in northern England is very
different from a rural bypass in a shire county. Assessment of
the relative benefits is difficult but regional knowledge helps
to clarify the situation.
September 2010
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