The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has allocated £3.4bn of New Homes Bonus (NHB) funding to English local councils from 2011-2016 for ‘increasing the number of homes and their use’. Transport Network investigated how much of this cash was earmarked for transport or road improvements to help ensure communities are not left in isolation or car dependency.
Data gathered from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests revealed that just 17 of the 261 responding English councils allocated a specific portion of the NHB funds towards transport or highways infrastructure, equating to just 6.5%, despite the fact that the new residences put more pressure on the network.
As the NHB funds are non-ring fenced, it is for councils to decide how they allocate this money, with the vast majority deciding to use these funds for their overall revenue and capital budgets rather than ringfence any of the cash for any specific purpose.
The councils that did dedicate funding include Basingstoke & Deane, Braintree, Cheltenham, Colchester, Gedling, Herefordshire, North Tyneside, Reigate & Banstead, Sheffield City, South Gloucestershire, Sunderland, Surrey, Wakefield City, Wigan, Worcester City, Worcestershire and City of York.
Amounts earmarked for transport and highways ranged from Wigan’s £3,615,000 to Cheltenham’s £50,000.
Those who dedicated the highest proportions of NHB cash to such infrastructure schemes included Wigan, which earmarked £3.6m for transport from its £4.9m allocation, Worcestershire, which dedicated £1.7m out of its £3.1m and Braintree DC which decided to spend £2.5m on the A120 access improvement package - out of its £4.6m NHB allocation.
Peter Smith, head of economic development and regeneration at Braintree DC said, ‘We have been able to focus on growth with creation of 14,000 new homes and 20,000 new jobs in the region. Reacting quickly to development opportunities was very crucial to this project.
‘Improvements along the A120 are a part of the Haven Gateway partnership plans, involving Colchester BC and Tendring DC and other local authorities. From Stansted airport we need good connectivity to Braintree as it is a major economic development opportunity for us. Top priority for us here was to deal with the massive congestion problems.
‘We’re hoping to work in partnership with the Essex CC and draw significant funding towards a total of £10m estimates for the project.’
NHB funds have also enabled Gedling BC to create 15 free parking spaces across the borough council area.
Mark Kimberly, corporate director, Gedling BC said, ‘Out of a total of £1.5m of the NHB funds, we’re using £0.5m for creating the Gedling access road. The running and maintenance costs of the free car parks (that we earlier got through parking charges) is roughly about £0.5m. The rest of the funds [NHB] are being used for economic development.’
South Gloucestershire Council was allocated £3.4m and £4.7m of NHB funds for 2013-14 and 2014-15. Of this, the council has allocated £0.12m (£126,400) and £0.11m (£116,750) towards highways capital schemes.
The council has devolved 30% of the 2011/12 – 2013/14 NHB funds each year to the five Area Forum Committees, and retained 70% to support its overall budget. This was later changed to 25% and 75% respectively.
Chris Manvel, deputy head of finance, South Gloucestershire Council explained, ‘This is a relatively new stream of funding for us. And we have a devolved decision making approach. Under the devolved scheme, the five areas have approved bids and allocated grants to 170 projects.
‘Roughly about five to six of these projects were related to the transport and highways sector. These included zebra crossings, resurfacing and repair works that local bodies see as priority areas for themselves.’
Surrey CC said it was allocated £1.9m funds under the NHB scheme, and is working with local partners to find infrastructure investment opportunities.
Trevor Pugh, strategic director, environment and infrastructure, at Surrey CC said: ‘Inadequate links to international gateways such as Heathrow and Gatwick is a key issue for us. We need substantial investment in road and rail at a local level, for example funded with Local Growth Deal support, and importantly at a strategic level with alignment of funding between Highways England and Network Rail and consortiums of LEPs, local authorities and other stakeholders.
‘We are working with LEPs, district and borough partners to bring forward transport infrastructure schemes using the relatively small NHB allocation to help pay for revenue costs in developing schemes. We need much more of this scheme development work to create long-term investment and a pipeline of schemes that also reduce costs. I hope that the devolution debate will produce new ways of financing this essential investment.’
Campaigners argue forward planning is key to ensuring new housing projects don’t develop in social and economic isolation and public transport links need to be established when housing is being build to reduce dependency on cars.
Stephen Joseph, chief executive of Campaign for Better Transport said: ‘You can’t just build houses, you need to build communities. Sizeable new home developments are going to need good transport linkages on top of the existing networks otherwise these could lead to entire local economies with large scale congestion.
‘In our research we found examples of both good and terrible practice. Cambridgeshire, for instance has both. Cambourne is a new community there that has been built without good transport links or local facilities. People there have been very isolated and have found it difficult to develop as a community.
‘Cambridgeshire has learnt from these experiences. A good example of this is a new development coming up at Northstowe adjacent to Cambridgeshire’s guided bus scheme. There will be good transport services available to those moving in to this development right from the start. This will give people good access to the Cambridgeshire science park, which is where lots of jobs are.’
Mr Joseph suggested that councils have a good opportunity to learn from each other’s best practices and explore the possibility of upgrading their railway lines for instance.
He said: ‘There are several examples of housing developments coming up around reopened railway lines. New developments could in fact, fund reopening of railway lines.’
