CONNECTING SOUTHAMPTON CITY REGION TRANSFORMING CITIES FUND STRATEGIC OUTLINE BUSINESS CASE a CONNECTING SOUTHAMPTON CITY REGION TRANSFORMING CITIES FUND STRATEGIC OUTLINE BUSINESS CASE Visualisation of proposed Southampton Central Station Interchange Contact Details Bid Manager and position – Iain Steane, Transport Policy Team Leader, Strategic Transport, Southampton City Council Contact Telephone Number – 023 80832283 Email – [email protected] Postal Address – Southampton City Council, Civic Centre, Civic Centre Road, Southampton, SO14 7LY i CONNECTING SOUTHAMPTON CITY REGION TRANSFORMING CITIES FUND STRATEGIC OUTLINE BUSINESS CASE Foreword We have bold ambitions to deliver sustainable growth and better connectivity across the Southampton City Region. The Transforming Cities Fund (TCF) will play a vital part in supporting this vision. This investment will be a catalyst for change in people’s everyday commuting habits and is strategically aligned to the goals set out in the City Council’s Green City Charter, the Hampshire 2050 vision and the Climate Emergency recently declared by the County Council. Our planned programme of major investment will transform transport infrastructure in a focussed way, rethinking how we use road space ensuring it works for everyone and ensuring the City Region is fit for the future. Our key plans include an enhanced bus travel experience, a high-quality network of cycle routes and liveable neighbourhoods where active travel is a safe and attractive choice. Together, these will contribute to our long term aims of reducing congestion, improving air quality, enhancing health and wellbeing and boosting economic growth. We have made excellent progress on delivering a number of our TCF Tranche 1 schemes and these are already improving how people connect to places of employment and local facilities in Southampton and Hampshire. We have been working closely with key stakeholders to finalise our bid for TCF and we are pleased to advise we have their full backing and support. Together we jointly commend this bid to the Department for Transport, confident that the investment through TCF will make a real difference to the quality of people’s lives, how they travel to work and the environment they live and work in. Cllr Jacqui Rayment Cllr Rob Humby Cabinet Member for Transport & Place Executive Member for Environment & Transport Southampton City Council Hampshire County Council ii CONNECTING SOUTHAMPTON CITY REGION TRANSFORMING CITIES FUND STRATEGIC OUTLINE BUSINESS CASE Executive Summary Cities across England require a transformation to their transport networks to support major changes in how people get around. This is needed to boost productivity, reduce inequalities and reduce road transport emissions, and the Southampton City Region is no exception. Southampton City Council (SCC) and Hampshire County Council (HCC) have made steps towards this change through partnership working with bus operators, delivery of strategic cycle corridors, co-design of residential streets, and behaviour change work over a number of years to promote sustainable travel. However, additional investment is required to deliver the transformational vision developed by SCC and HCC. The TCF Programme of investment in sustainable transport outlined in the Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) is scalable and will support sustainable economic growth in the Southampton City Region. The aims of the programme are to transform people’s mobility by offering them better alternatives to the car. This re-imagining of travel will see a clear shift to more multi-modal journeys with the bus and cycle placed centre stage, connecting the places where people live with the main employment areas. By focusing on enhancing connectivity along the five most critical radial corridors, people’s journeys will be improved, and congestion reduced. This will reduce dependence on the private car, thereby iii CONNECTING SOUTHAMPTON CITY REGION TRANSFORMING CITIES FUND STRATEGIC OUTLINE BUSINESS CASE enabling transformational change in the City Centre, other key towns and across residential neighbourhoods. The TCF programme is formed around three themes and eight categories of project, as summarised below. Theme 1: Transforming Mobility Rapid Bus Corridors that use priority and partnership to make travelling by bus easy, quick and attractive through combining new physical bus priority, enhanced bus stops, innovative technology, and modern, low-emission vehicles, the bus will be the travel mode of choice instead of the private car. Park & Ride for Southampton that provides people with a new facility for services to the Hospital and City Centre. Local Mobility Hubs that widen the choice and availability of shared e-mobility in local areas that combine access to a range of electric vehicles (cars, vans or bikes) with ‘click and collect’ services, coffee or public transport. Smart Technology that improves reliability of public transport through Connected- Intelligent Transport Systems to manage the transport network and provide priority to Rapid Bus through the worst congestion bottlenecks at traffic signals. Theme 2: Transforming Lifestyles A comprehensive Southampton Cycle Network that enables commuters and residents to make safe and easy journeys to work and for leisure, through a coherent network of direct, high-quality, segregated routes connecting suburbs and workplaces across the City Region. Active Travel Zones where walking and cycling become the norm for local neighbourhood journeys, co-designed and developed working in partnership with local communities. Theme 3: Transforming Gateways Investing in Better Interchanges including within the City Centre at Southampton Central station and at other rail stations and transport hubs Transforming the quality of City Centre public spaces within the heart of the City into a much more vibrant, stimulating and people-focussed place, less dominated by moving or parked cars, supporting housing growth and where people enjoy visiting again and again, helping boost businesses and the local economy. Through the year-on-year modal shift away from the private car that it enables, air quality will improve, transport networks will produce less carbon and real progress will be made towards addressing the issue of climate change. The City Region will become a fairer and more equitable place, where not owning a car does not limit your opportunities or quality of life, instead it is an empowering lifestyle choice. The Strategic Case – The case for change The Southampton City Region is a growing and dynamic functional economic area within the Solent sub-region. The coastal location has shaped the urban form and economic geography which has benefited the area, but this unique geography also constrains people’s movements. Southampton iv CONNECTING SOUTHAMPTON CITY REGION TRANSFORMING CITIES FUND STRATEGIC OUTLINE BUSINESS CASE doesn’t have 360° access meaning people coming into the City Centre are funnelled along a limited number of corridors and bridges. There is a current workday population of 445,000 and is focused on the City of Southampton and extends into Hampshire incorporating Totton, the Waterside (area of New Forest along Southampton Water), Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh, Hedge End and Hamble. A Growing City Region is being constrained by congestion and delays Significant growth in homes and employment space is planned and overcoming constraints within the transport network is essential for that to succeed. An additional 42,000 dwellings and 472,000m2 of employment space are planned across the Region. This is projected to create an additional 159,000 extra trips per day across the network, potentially leading to further journey time unreliability and congestion on the network if improvements are not made. Traffic congestion could result in 21% fewer jobs created if no investment is made. The Port of Southampton is currently the UK’s third busiest port, with plans to double throughput by 2036. It is the largest for exports to non-EU markets, worth £71bn and employs 5,000 people. Annually, 34.4m tonnes of cargo passes through it, including over 900,000 vehicles and 1.9m containers (TEUs) in a 365 day 24 hour operation. It is also the UK’s premier cruise port handling over 85% of UK cruise patronage with 1.64m passengers on 450 vessel calls per annum. Southampton is also a gateway to the Isle of Wight with 5m ferry passenger movements a year. Securing the growth of the Port, and supporting its contribution to the wider UK economy, is reliant on reducing pressure on the strategic road network. Weak connections between residential areas and workplaces add to congestion levels and lower productivity The biggest employer in the city and a regionally important teaching hospital is the University Hospital Southampton, based in the North West of the city employing 11,500 staff. The Port and port-related industries are also a major employer. Universities in the North and Central parts of the city have a combined student population of over 40,000, and a number of UK and international companies are headquartered or have major operations throughout the Region - including ABP, Ageas, Aviva, B&Q, Carnival, Garmin, GE Aviation, IBM and Quilter plc (formerly Old Mutual Wealth). A number of these larger employers are in less accessible non-City Centre locations including Chandlers Ford, Hounsdown and Hamble, resulting in very car-centric, de-agglomerated commuting patterns. The urban spread and economic differences between Southampton