Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Transportation and Highways

The Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Transportation and Highways, which set out the Coventry Transport Strategy.

The Council has developed a draft Coventry Transport Strategy, which was attached as Appendix 1 to the report submitted.  The Strategy sets out a long term (15 year) vision for the way that people and goods will travel to, from and around the City in the future.  Through the exploitation of new technologies and ideas, which are being developed in the City, it is intended to achieve the following 4 broad objectives:

·  Supporting the City’s economic recovery and enabling long term growth;

·  Delivering a sustainable, low carbon transport system;

·  Ensuring equality of opportunity;

·  Maximising health and wellbeing.

The draft Strategy is closely linked to the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Local Transport Plan (LTP) for the region as a whole.  The LTP is currently under review and the Coventry Transport Plan will form part of the final West Midlands LTP. 

A pubic consultation on the draft Coventry Transport Strategy is proposed, with a view to the adoption of the final Strategy before the end of March 2022.

The Strategy is supported by a separate draft Implementation Plan, attached as Appendix 2 to the report, which is focussed primarily on the first five years of the Strategy (2022/23 – 2026/27).  The Plan sets out the specific transport schemes that will be delivered in order to implement the Strategy and reflects an expected five-year funding settlement between the Department for Transport and the WMCA  - the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) – which is expected to provide the bulk of the funding required for many of these schemes.

Discussions between the Department for Transport and WMCA are ongoing, however, it is expected that a final funding allocation will be confirmed before the end of 2021 as part of the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review.  The draft Implementation Plan will be updated to reflect this prior to the Council being asked to adopt the final Strategy before the end of March 2022.

RESOLVED that, the Cabinet:

1.  Approve the draft Coventry Transport Strategy as shown in Appendix 1 of the report, for public consultation.

2.  Note that following the consultation, a further report will be produced for Cabinet to adopt the Coventry Transport Strategy.