Issue - meetings

Report of the Executive Director of Place

The Cabinet considered a report of the Executive Director of Place, which set out a strategic transport investment strategy ‘Connecting Coventry’ and the opportunities for achieving this including working with Midlands Connect, Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). 

The report indicated that Coventry was a dynamic and rapidly growing city where transport investment was essential to keep pace with continuing change. In 2004 the city’s population was under 300,000.  It had grown steadily since to 345,000 and was forecast to reach over 415,000 in the next 20 years.  In the proposed next Local Plan period up to 2031 it was forecast that investment and development in Coventry would create 50,000 jobs, with a consequential growth in housing to meet the needs of the growing city. 

The Council had been very successful in obtaining funding and delivering schemes from a number of sources for investment in the city’s transport infrastructure, with £150m of improvements delivered over the last 5 years.  There was now an opportunity to continue to build on this success.  However in order to maximize the economic potential of the city and to take full advantage of developments such as High Speed Rail (HS2), it was essential that the Council look to get investment both directly within the city and also in strategic cross boundary transport schemes  that support Coventry’s growth aspirations.

The principal objectives of this strategy include improving the resilience of the road network (so the strategic road network does not come to a halt when a motorway has to be closed); ensuring connectivity to HS2 and job opportunities around the new station and linking key developments and employment sites to HS2 including Friargate and Jaguar Landrover; and an expansion of railway capacity and reconnecting Coventry to the East Midlands by rail.  The strategy was summarized in Appendix 1 of the report submitted.

One major opportunity to help deliver this strategy was the £247m strategic transport package agreed as part of the WMCA Devolution Deal package approved by Council in May 2016.  Although an outline package of schemes was included at the time, it was for the City Council to determine which schemes went forward for funding.  The WMCA had an ‘assurance framework process’ which all schemes would have to go through, the main purpose of which was to ensure that all schemes across the region were aligned to the policies of the adopted West Midlands transport strategy entitled ‘Movement for Growth’.  The main aims of this strategy were to drive job creation and growth and were in line with the City Council’s own priorities.

This report submitted outlined the schemes that it was proposed to take forward as part of this package, which were summarised in four programmes:

·  Coventry South – major highway and rail proposals to facilitate growth, especially around Jaguar Land Rover and the University of Warwick and to provide connectivity to HS2 and UK Central;

·  City Centre – a major increase in capacity at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 102