Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority rejects mayor’s transport plan

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s overarching transport strategy has been voted down by its board.

Or, more specifically, by Peterborough City Council’s Conservative leader Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald, who wordlessly vetoed the wide-ranging plans yesterday (Wednesday, September 21).

Cllr Fitzgerald was one of two Combined Authority board members with the ability to reject the region-wide strategy outright as Peterborough is a highways authority.

When explicitly asked to comment on the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan – a 50-page transport strategy for the region – Cllr Fitzgerald refused.

The debate centred around references in the document to “fiscal measures” as an option to “help manage [the] demand” of private car use.

This is a watered down version of the previous wording – that “road user or congestion charging” could help drive down private car use – in an earlier version of the plan vetoed by Cllr Fitzgerald in June.

The plan is a wide-ranging strategic document, with numerous appendices setting out a vision for each district in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

It underpins much of what Combined Authority’s leader, Labour mayor Dr Nik Johnson, wants to achieve during his tenure with regard to creating “an inclusive, integrated, and sustainable transport network which works for us all”.

But it needs the support of both the region’s transport authorities, Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council. Although the Combined Authority can allocate funding to transport schemes and work on them with constituent councils, it cannot impose policies on them.

Cambridgeshire County Council leader Cllr Lucy Nethsingha made her feelings about the situation clear.

The Liberal Democrat leader said: “It makes me really angry on a whole range of different levels, but one of the most important is that – not only is this kind of junking of any pretence that the Conservatives might have had to take any interest in climate change, which is not just going on in this chamber but nationally today – but it’s also a massive betrayal of the very large number of our population of people who cannot afford to drive or are unable to drive.”

Cllr Nethsingha added that she believes the plan is being rejected for “political reasons”, stressing that road charging can’t be forced on Peterborough or any other area in the region.

However, there were also concerns from East Cambridgeshire District Council leader, Conservative Cllr Anna Bailey, who said that “a vote for this document is a vote for road charging”.

Cllr Chris Boden, the Conservative leader of Fenland District Council, similarly repeated his fears that the plan is tantamount to a “war on motorists”.

Later in the meeting Dr Johnson led a vote to defer approving £200,000 for Peterborough’s new electric bus depot, saying the project rests partly on the success of the transport plan.

Cllr Fitzgerald said that doing so is “ridiculous” as there is already an older LTCP in place and that it “may put in jeopardy” the credibility of the Combined Authority and its commitment to electric buses.

Cllr Bailey went as far as to call the move “a punishment for Wayne” because of his earlier veto and “outrageous behaviour”.

Dr Johnson refuted this, saying it was a “great shame” the plan could not move forward, but that “due diligence” needed to be done with regards to the plans in the absence of the new LTCP which explicitly mentions Peterborough’s electric bus depot – unlike the old one, still in force, which does not.

A report on the project states: “The success of the bus depot project is explicitly linked with the approval of the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) as this document provides the strategic policy position and commitment from the Combined Authority and partners to continue to develop alternative fuelled vehicles, including buses.”

In a statement issued after the meeting, Dr Johnson added that the Combined Authority will vote on the plan again.

“I’ve every confidence that we will bring this decision back for approval at the earliest opportunity,” he said.