Issue - meetings

The agenda report and its appendix in relation to this item appear on pages 1 to 92 of the agenda for the Cabinet’s special meeting which will take place immediately prior to this special meeting of the Council.

Having regard to para 3.1 of the agenda report but subject to the outcome of the Cabinet’s special meeting, it is anticipated that the Council will be asked to make the following resolutions:

(1) That in promoting a scheme to the government for inclusion in RIS2, Approach A be supported as being desirable without indicating a preference for either option ie promoting both the ‘mitigated northern route’ and the ‘full southern route’.

(2) That the ‘fall-back’ position if no approach is selected be noted.    

The Chairman introduced the single substantive item of business at this special meeting, namely to determine CDC’s position with regard to a scheme to be promoted to the government for inclusion within RIS2 for the improvement of the A27 Chichester Bypass.

She drew attention to the agenda report and its appendix for the Cabinet’s special meeting which had preceded this meeting, copies of which were available in the Council Chamber.

She also referred to an agenda supplement which had been published the previous day on CDC’s web-site for online viewing only, consisting of two documents: (a) the second background paper listed in the Cabinet agenda report (paras 9.4 and 13.2 on page 8) namely a note of the BABA27 meeting held on 18 May 2018 and (b) a letter dated 5 June 2018 written by Jim O’Sullivan, Chief Executive of Highways England, to Louise Goldsmith, Leader of West Sussex County Council.

She stated that at its special meeting earlier in the day the Cabinet had considered this matter and made a slightly amended version of para (1) of the recommendation set out on the face of both the Council agenda and on the Cabinet agenda. The revised version appeared on a sheet circulated within the Council Chamber prior to the start of this special meeting namely:

(1)  That in promoting a scheme to the government for inclusion in RIS2, Approach A be supported without indicating a preference for either option ie namely both the ‘mitigated northern route’ and the ‘full southern route’.

(2)  That the ‘fall-back’ position if no approach is selected be noted.

In response to the Chairman, Mr Dignum moved the Cabinet’s aforementioned amended recommendation and Mr Connor duly seconded it.     

The report in the Cabinet agenda was presented by Mr Dignum.

He said that there was almost a complete consensus in favour of one thing: achieving improvements to the A27 to ease congestion etc issues for local and through traffic. Highways England (HE) had afforded the community the opportunity to put forward, on balance, the best route by choosing between the northern and southern concepts. The consultants, Systra Limited, had advocated an off-line mitigated northern route and an on-line full southern route, which sought to address the disadvantages of those two options. HE had so far neither restricted the nature and extent of improvements to on-line nor ruled out off-line routes and was prepared to consider two alternatives. The report by officers recommended Approach A ie both northern and southern concepts to be advanced with no preference. West Sussex County Council’s (WSCC) Cabinet Member for Highways and Infrastructure had stated that the‘mitigated northernroute’ was WSCC’s preferredoption butthe ‘fullsouthernroute’ shouldalso be developedas areasonable alternative. Mr Dignum had asked HE’s Regional Sponsor for South East England, Paul Benham, if a different submission by CDC from WSCC would present any problem in terms of consensus and was advised: ‘In response to your question, I do not see it as an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5

The Cabinet is requested to consider the agenda report and its appendix and to make as set out below (a) the resolution and (b) the recommendation to the special meeting of the Council which will follow this special meeting of the Cabinet.

A - RESOLUTION BY THE CABINET

That the outputs of the work by Systra and the BABA27 community group be noted.

B – RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE COUNCIL

(1) That in promoting a scheme to the government for inclusion in RIS2, Approach A be supported as being desirable without indicating a preference for either option ie promoting both the ‘mitigated northern route’ and the ‘full southern route’.

(2) That the ‘fall-back’ position if no approach is selected be noted.    

RESOLVED

That the outputs of the work by Systra and the BABA27 community group be noted.

RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL

(1) That in promoting a scheme to the government for inclusion in RIS2, Approach A be supported without indicating a preference for either option namely promoting both the ‘mitigated northern route’ and the ‘full southern route’.

(2) That the ‘fall-back’ position if no approach is selected be noted.    

The Cabinet considered the agenda report and its appendix.

An agenda supplement  had also been published for online viewing only, which contained the second background paper listed in para 13.2 of the report and a letter dated 5 June 2018 from Jim O’Sullivan, Chief Executive of Highways England to Louise Goldsmith, Leader of the Council at West Sussex County Council.

The report was presented by Mr Dignum. He said that there was almost a complete consensus in favour of one thing: achieving improvements to the A27 to ease congestion etc issues for local and through traffic. Highways England (HE) had afforded the community the opportunity to put forward, on balance, the best route by choosing between the northern and southern concepts. The consultants, Systra Limited, had advocated an off-line mitigated northern route and an on-line full southern route, which sought to address the disadvantages of these options. HE had so far neither restricted the nature and extent of improvements of on-line nor ruled out off-line routes and was prepared to consider two alternatives. The report by officers recommended Approach A ie both northern and southern concepts advanced with no preference. West Sussex County Council’s (WSCC) Cabinet Member for Highways and Infrastructure had stated that the‘mitigated northernroute’ was WSCC’s preferredoption butthe ‘fullsouthernroute’ shouldalso be developedas areasonable alternative. Mr Dignum had asked HE’s Regional Sponsor for South East England, Paul Benham, if a different submission by CDC from WSCC would present any problem in terms of consensus and was advised: ‘In response to your question, I do not see it as an issue at this stage. It will be more important to achieve a level of consensus once we have carried out our assessment of both options and arrived at our conclusions.’ HE had recently been asked by WSCC and CDC leaders to evaluate both concepts as soon as possible and it had agreed to evaluate and report on the engineering feasibility and likely cost of both options by ‘late autumn’ 2018. Systra had identified advantages and disadvantages to both routes. The issue of affordability within the likely RIS 2 budget was relevant to both routes and HE had twice emphasised to the leaders that many other schemes across the country were competing for inclusion in RIS2 and their combined cost was far greater than the likely total RIS2 budget. Of the various local surveys of opinion, the Build A Better A27 (BABA27) showed the highest support (but not a majority) for one concept only – however, respondents had not been asked to specify a preferred concept and so the balance between north and south could not be ascertained. Thus the community had not been able to agree a single choice. As Leader of the Council he was proposing that CDC should not make a single choice at this stage since it did not have all the relevant facts (which only HE could provide) and there was a risk that in choosing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 541