Agenda and minutes

There were no discolsable pecuniary interests.

(a)  To agree the minutes from the meeting of Cabinet on 4th November 2025

(b)  Matters arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 4^th November 2025 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Finance and Resources

Report of the Director of Finance and Resources

Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Finance and Resources, that would also be considered by the Audit and Procurement Committee on 2^nd February 2025, which advised of the forecast outturn position for revenue and capital expenditure and the Council’s treasury management activity as at the end of September 2025. The net revenue forecast position after management action was for spend in 2025/26 of £3.3m over budget. Whilst not a wholly comparable position, at the same point in 2024/25, there was also a projected overspend of £10.2m.

The Council continued to face budget pressures within Adults Social Care, Property Services and Development, City Services and Regeneration and Economic Development. These financial pressures were being caused by a combination of continued service demand, complexity and market conditions in social care, legacy inflation impacts, and income shortfalls due largely to the economic climate. 

The Council’s capital spending was projected to be £184m and included major schemes progressing across the city. The size of the programme and the nature of the projects within it continued to be fundamental to the Council’s role within the city. Although prevailing inflation rates looked to be stabilising, legacy inflationary pressures continued to affect capital projects. The Council would continue to monitor the position and ensure projects were delivered within available resources.

RESOLVED that Cabinet:

1)  Approves the Council’s 2025/26 second quarter revenue monitoring position.

2)  Approves the revised forecast capital outturn position for the year of £184m incorporating: £1.4m net increase in spending relating to approved/technical changes and £5m of net programme rescheduling of expenditure to future years.

Report of the Director of Innovation

Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Innovation, that would also be considered at the meeting of Council on 13^th January 2026, on the Coventry Very Light Rail research and development project

The Coventry Very Light Rail (CVLR) demonstration in the city centre during Summer 2025 was a major success. The mission was to create a tram system that could be installed quickly and at less than half the cost of conventional tram systems: the ground-breaking track was installed in just over eight  weeks and proved that the Council were on target to achieve the target installation cost of circa £10m/km.

The purpose of the report was to seek approval for the construction of an 800m twin track City Centre Demonstrator (CCD) that would operate in a live traffic environment from Coventry Railway Station to Coventry University Technology Park (see Appendix 1 to the report for the route plan). The demonstration phase built on everything learned in the summer and would help to lay the foundations for the first commercial route by:

1.  Operating the CVLR vehicle with live traffic – including the installation of an autonomous ready vehicle control system integrated with the city’s traffic signal control system.

2.  Providing rides for the public and stakeholders to demonstrate how the vehicle has evolved since the On Road Test (ORT) in June 2025 and to take feedback on the system.

3.  Demonstrating at scale, using the learnings from the ORT, the speed of installation and affordability of the CVLR track.

4.  Expediting the design and delivery process.

5.  Utilising learning to inform the business case and design of Coventry’s first commercial route and, more widely, to continue to stimulate national and global commercial interest.

The 800m route was intended to form part of the proposed first commercial route (subject to business case approval) running from the railway station to the West Midlands Investment Zone (Greenpower Park), with potential to extend northwards from the railway station through the city centre to connect to Pool Meadow, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) and to a Park and Ride at Ansty Park.  The  800m demonstrator section would be delivered using allocated grant funding from the City Region Sustainable Transport Funding (CRSTS) and was scheduled to be constructed by March 2027.  Further funding would be sought from the Transport for City Region (TCR) fund, which replaced CRSTS from 1 April 2027.

As an added benefit, in October 2027 the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress was being staged at the NEC. This provided an excellent opportunity to showcase, to a global audience the benefits of CVLR using it to carry delegates to the National Transport Design Centre (on the Technology Park) to showcase Coventry’s ground-breaking transport innovations.

RESOLVED that Cabinet recommends that Council approves:

1)  The installation of the CVLR slab track and a short period of operation, of the City Centre Demonstrator (CCD) from Coventry Railway Station to Coventry University Technology Park in a live traffic environment will follow the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46.

Report of the Interim Director of City Services

Cabinet considered a report of the Interim Director of City Services on Coventry’s utilisation of the Highways Maintenance Contract 2016 (HMC16) collaborative contract between Warwickshire County Council (WCC), Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC), and Coventry City Council (CCC), for specialist highways treatments and significant carriageway resurfacing projects, which would end on 5 May 2026. The report sought approval for Coventry City Council’s use of the future highways contract from 5 May 2026 (period 7-year core term plus potential extensions up to a further 6 years) for the works outlined in the report. 

WCC have carried out a tender process for a future highways contract to meet all their highways needs. The Council could be a party to this for elements of its Highways work which provided a legally compliant procurement framework where delivery of works was to be undertaken outside the use of the Highways Direct Labour Organisation (DLO) team.

RESOLVED that Cabinet:

1)  Subject to Procurement Board approval, approves the Council’s use of Warwickshire County Council’s Highways Maintenance Contract 2026 for the contract period (7-year core term plus potential extensions up to a further 6 years) from 5 May 2026 for the works outlined in the report.

2)  Delegates authority to the Interim Director of City Services, to undertake all necessary due diligence to enter into the contract, including but not limited to:

•  Finalising the terms of Coventry City Council’s participation in the Highways Maintenance Contract 2026; and

•  entry into the contract on behalf of the Council.

There are no outstanding issues

There were no outstanding issues.

There were no other items of public business.