Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Transportation and Highways

The Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Transportation and Highways on the proposals for an all-Electric Bus City and Enhanced Partnership Plan. Appendices to the report provided a copy of a Letter from the Department for Transport to the West Midlands Combined Authority and the West Midlands Combined Authority Enhanced Partnership Plan, November 2020.

The Department for Transport (DfT) launched the All Electric Bus Town fund in February 2020, with £50 million in grant funding made available to allow one town or city within England to make the transition to a bus network operated fully by electric powered buses. The West Midlands Combined Authority, as the strategic transport authority for the West Midlands, submitted an Expression of Interest for Coventry. The Expression of Interest was developed by the City Council in partnership with Warwickshire County Council and Transport for West Midlands and covered all public bus services operating within the city and in surrounding areas of Warwickshire.

The Department for Transport subsequently confirmed that the Coventry and Warwickshire bid had been shortlisted alongside a second bid from Oxfordshire County Council based on Oxford.  In the Budget Statement on 25th November 2020, Government increased the amount of funding available for the All Electric Bus Town competition, and the Department for Transport confirmed to the Chief Executive of the West Midlands Combined Authority, that the Coventry/ Warwickshire proposal would be funded subject to the submission of a satisfactory Full Business Case.

The Department for Transport had also confirmed that the West Midlands Combined Authority would be the accountable body for the Coventry and Warwickshire scheme, as the strategic transport authority for the Coventry area, and that responsibility for the development and approval of the Full Business Case was proposed to be devolved from the Department of Transport to the West Midlands Combined Authority. The Full Business Case would be presented to the West Midlands Combined Authority Board at its meeting on 19th March 2021 for approval. 

City Council officers had taken a lead role in the preparation of the Full Business Case and, if successful, the bid would see around 297 new electric buses come into operation in Coventry over the next four years. This meant that by Winter 2025 every public bus service in the city would be operated by a zero-emission electric vehicle, supporting the Council’s objectives of a green economic recovery through the de-carbonisation of the city’s transport network, with an estimated annual emissions saving of around 24,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and 55 tonnes of nitrogen dioxide.

The West Midlands Combined Authority had also published a notice to make an Enhanced Partnership Plan for the West Midlands area, to which Coventry City Council, as a constituent authority of the West Midlands Combined Authority, would need to be a signatory. Once made, this would enable an Enhanced Partnership Scheme to be established for the Coventry area requiring all future public bus services in the city to be operated by zero-emission buses, thereby enshrining the principles and objectives  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69