Decision details

To agree that:

(1)  The position of responsible body be assumed by B&NES Council for Phase 2 of the Bath City Centre project, to be delivered according to milestones agreed with the Combined Authority.

(2)  Approval be delegated to the Executive Director of Sustainable Communities, in consultation with the S151 Officer, to accept the Grant Offer Letter (GOL) from the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority when it is provided.

(3)  Capital budget of £711k be approved to develop the Full Business Case (FBC), final Preliminary and Detailed Designs for the scheme. This is entirely funded by CRSTS grant.

(4)  The intention for further approval of grant funding acceptance be sought at an appropriate time, following Combined Authority approval of the Full Business Case, for delivery of the works associated with the Bath City Centre Phase 2 project.

The project aims to improve accessibility of Bath city centre by Public Transport through measures such as the prioritisation of bus movement at problem areas for reliability and congestion, re-routing of buses to more direct routes, and segregation of buses from general traffic. Interventions will deliver journey time benefits and corridor cohesion for CRSTS Strategic Corridor projects where they interface with the city centre, improving reliability, and strengthening the end-to-end impact of the schemes.

The project will make a positive contribution to a reduction in transport-related emissions, and an improvement in air quality within the city centre, helping Bath to achieve net-zero carbon by 2030.

The Combined Authority could continue to lead the project, with council time limited to an advisory role and Highway approval only. However, the council is the Highway Authority so the delivery of highway interventions would be more complex in this delivery model. Local community engagement will be enhanced through increased cross-service liaison and interfaces with other council projects.

Not to proceed with the project beyond its current phase and return CRSTS grant funds to the Combined Authority for distribution across other projects within the sub-region, or to be returned to central government. However, this is a transformational opportunity for the corridors in question and not proceeding would prevent this scale of investment and improvement from taking place.