Transport plans in chaos as ministers withhold cash

30 January 2008
 
Councils across southern England are having to revise their local transport plans because the Government has not provided the revenue to pay for capital allocated as ‘supported borrowing’.

In revenue funding allocations confirmed by local government minister, John Healey, floor authorities – those receiving the minimum 2% increase in grant – would have to pay for debt repayments on the LTP ‘allocations’ themselves.

All of the highway maintenance allocations, and two-thirds of the integrated transport funding comes in the form of an approval to borrow. Seven Southeast counties will receive just £71M in direct grant out of a £649M allocation.

Alison Quant, director of environment at Hampshire County Council, one of those affected, told Surveyor: ‘We need to rip up our LTP, and start again.’

Trevor Mose, LTP and policy team leader at Hertfordshire, another floor authority, predicted that LTP targets would not be met.

The 10 county councils affected are Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, West Sussex and Wiltshire. The County Surveyors’ Society, however, stressed that other local transport authorities would receive some, but not all, of the revenue grant needed for councils to take up the offer of supported borrowing.

East Sussex and Kent are among those above the floor which will not receive the full amount of revenue needed to support their borrowing. Henry Smith, chairman of South East County Leaders, representing the interests of authorities in the region, said: ‘As a Doncaster MP, (transport minister, Rosie) Winterton could be forgiven for not understanding just how severely her Government penalises the Southeast.’

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