North Yorkshire County Council Business and Environmental Services Executive Members 4 February 2016 Highways Capital Programme 2016/17 Report of the Assistant Director – Highways and Transportation 1.0 Purpose of Report 1.1 The purpose of this report is to seek Corporate Director, Business and Environmental Services (BES) in consultation with BES Executive Members agreement for changes to the Highways Capital Programme for Street Lighting, Bridges and Structures, Integrated Transport and Structural Highway Maintenance for 2016/17 and for 2017/18 headline allocations as part of the rolling two year capital programme. 1.2 This report also includes an update on proposed changes to the Highway Maintenance funding formula and our ‘incentive fund’ self-assessment banding. 2.0 Background 2.1 The Highways Capital Programme is made up of four specific elements; these are Street Lighting; Bridges and Structures; Integrated Transport and Structural Highway Maintenance. Each of these elements is subject to prioritisation methods based upon an assessment of the problem that is being addressed. 2.2 A report was considered by the BES Executive Members in July 2015 when alongside carry-forward schemes and proposed allocations of additional funding for 2015/16, the 2016/17 capital works programme was agreed. 2.3 The Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed the LTP block allocations for Integrated Transport and the draft “needs based” Highway Maintenance allocation in July and December 2015 respectively. Members will note from previous reports that the funding formula for both the Integrated Transport Block and Highway Maintenance have changed. These changes took effect from 01 April 2015 for Integrated Transport and will take effect from 01 April 2016 for Highway Maintenance. 2.4 This Report also contains details of essential changes to the 2016/17 Capital Programme, in terms of those schemes that it has been necessary to add or remove from the Programme, since it was agreed by BES Executive Members NYCC – 4 February 2016 – Executive Members Highways Capital Programme 2016/17/1 in July 2015. It also sets out details of the proposed headline allocations for 2017/18 as well as further information on the changes to the funding formula for Highway Maintenance. 3.0 Funding Changes 3.1 As set out in paragraph 2.3 above, the DfT has announced the Local Highway Maintenance Block Funding Settlements for 2016/17 to 2020/1. These settlements are based on a new funding formula that the DfT consulted on during the autumn of 2014. 3.2 In broad terms the new funding formula has been amended to remove the perverse incentive of rewarding poor highway condition with extra funding; in a number of cases authorities that have not spent the whole of their highway maintenance allocation on highway maintenance and therefore have highways in poor condition have then received a higher capital settlement as a result of their poor highway condition. 3.3 Rather than taking any account of the highway condition the new ‘needs- based’ formula is based purely on the size of the highway asset (e.g. length of road, number of bridges, number of street lights etc.). The national (England) block of highway maintenance capital funding is distributed in accordance with the size of the highway asset. In broad terms this has benefitted the County Council as previously our highway asset was in a comparatively good condition. 3.4 In addition to the ‘needs-based’ element above, as part of the review of the allocation of highway maintenance capital funding, the DfT has introduced two new initiatives; an ‘incentive’ element and a ‘challenge fund’. 3.5 Incentive element 3.5.1 The DfT is keen to ensure that all authorities get the best value for money from their highway maintenance capital funding allocation. To encourage this they have introduced an ‘incentive’ element to the allocation of the maintenance funding. Whilst in 2015/16 each authority received 100% of its allocation based on the existing needs based formula, for future years this will be reduced if the authority does not meet a number of criteria (set by the DfT) that reflect their efficiencies in highway maintenance and the adoption of asset management. In order to receive the incentive fund, local highways authorities are required to assess themselves annually into a particular banding and provide evidence by way of a questionnaire. 3.5.3 In November 2015 we took part in an external LGA/HMEP review of the highways maintenance service. The overall outcome was that we compared favourably with other councils with strong leadership, good communications NYCC – 4 February 2016 – Executive Members Highways Capital Programme 2016/17/2 and customer focus being highlighted. There are further days arranged picking up on areas where improvements were highlighted. This work will continue into 2016/17 and will be used to inform our 2017/18 funding assessment. 3.5.4 Table 1 below contains details of the County Council’s allocations for 2016/17 to 2020/21 together with the implications of the ‘incentive’ element, potentially £14.1M over five years. Table 1 Extra Sum available through Allocation Year ‘Incentive’ element (£M) Band 3 Band 2 Band 1 2016/17 £27.182 1.645 1.645 1.481 2017/18 £26.359 2.468 2.221 1.481 2018/19 £23.858 4.969 3.478 1.491 2019/20 £23.858 4.969 2.485 0.497 2020/21 £23.858 4.969 1.491 0 Total £125.115 19.02 11.32 4.95 3.6 Challenge fund 3.6.1 As part of the December 2014 announcement the DfT released details of a new Local Highway Maintenance Challenge Fund. For the funding period to 2020/21 this has been split into two tranches; one covers the period 2015/16 to 2017/18 (worth £275M nationally), and the second covering the period 2018/19 to 2020/21 (worth £300M nationally). This funding is provided from top slicing the national funding allocation for highway maintenance. 3.6.2 Bids for tranche 1 were submitted to the DfT by 9th February 2015. The fund is open to all English highway authorities outside London and is available ‘to enable local highway authorities in England to bid for major maintenance projects that are otherwise difficult to fund through the normal needs element allocations’. 3.6.3 Executive Members will recall that in February 2015 the County Council submitted two bids for funding into the Challenge Fund. These bids were for maintenance of the A63 Selby Bypass and for a package of landslip remedial measures in the Yorkshire Dales (primarily in Swaledale and at Kex Gill). Neither of these bids was successful in attracting funding from the Government. Feedback from Government indicated that although the schemes scored relatively well in terms of the Department for Transport’s assessment criteria, the Challenge Fund as a whole was vastly oversubscribed (over 100 bids were submitted with only 31 being funded) and the County Councils bids did not score highly enough to attract the limited funding available. NYCC – 4 February 2016 – Executive Members Highways Capital Programme 2016/17/3 3.6.4 It is likely that there will be another opportunity to bid for this Challenge Fund probably in 2017/18. Officers are further developing medium term proposals for landslip stabilisation at Kex Gill as a potential bid for the next round of funding. 4.0 Christmas 2015 Flood Damage 4.1 Members will be aware of the substantial damage caused during the Christmas storm; most significant of which is the damage to Tadcaster Bridge which made national headlines and attracted visits from senior politicians and royalty alike. Although it is very early in the process of assessing the cost of the damage, preliminary estimations have been reported at £5 million to repair the highway infrastructure; this includes around £3.5 million for the repair of Tadcaster Bridge, with the remainder for the repairs of various roads damaged by flood water. 5.0 Proposed Changes to the Agreed 2016/17 Works Programme 5.1 Street Lighting 5.1.1 As a 2016/17 Street Lighting Programme has not yet been agreed by BES Executive Members, it is attached as Appendix 4 5.2 Bridges and Structures 5.2.1 There have been no changes to the 2016/17 Works Programme. Members will be aware of the damage to Tadcaster Bridge, which remains the highest priority for the Service Area. Other structures around the County were affected by the recent flooding event and analysis of the recent survey data is currently on-going. Clearly Tadcaster Bridge and any other urgent bridge works will affect the agreed works on the Capital Programme; however, at this time it is too early to give any further details. Tadcaster Bridge, other affected structures and their influence on the Capital Programme will be reported to a future BES Executive Members meeting. 5.3 Integrated Transport 5.3.1 There are no changes proposed to the Integrated Transport Programme that BES Executive Members approved in February 2015. 5.4 Structural Highway Maintenance 5.4.1 Appendices 2 and 2.1 of this report contain details of essential changes to the 2016/17 Capital Programme for agreement by BES Executive Members, in the form of schemes that are proposed to be added or removed. A short explanation for either their inclusion or exclusion is also provided. 5.4.2 Reasons for schemes removed from the programme include reprioritisation due to works being brought forward into the current year, and other works being in greater need resulting in other works being pushed into future years. Some surface dressing sites have been removed from the programme as they NYCC – 4 February 2016 – Executive Members Highways Capital Programme 2016/17/4 have deteriorated to a condition beyond which a preventative treatment is appropriate or have not been prepared to receive a dressing.