Decisions

As part of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund York has been allocated £400k capital from the Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) to implement an investment plan that was agreed by DEFRA in January 2023. This funding can be spent only in designated rural areas as shown on the DEFRA MagicMap, and only on capital items. In October 2022, CYC Executive gave delegated authority to the Corporate Director of Place to implement this Investment Plan, in consultation with the relevant Executive Members and the York UKSPF Partnership Board. This delegation was reconfirmed in October 2023 when Executive considered the results of a light touch review of the programme. Due to the senior management restructure, the decision has been made by the COO who is able to make any decisions that are delegated to any Directors.

As part of our York REPF investment plan, the Executive Member and Partnership Board agreed to invest £100k in the BioRenewables Development Centre (BDC) at Dunnington, with the objective of providing tangible support to the Bio Yorkshire initiative which is a joint project of the University of York, Askham Bryan College and FERA Science. BDC is a subsidiary of the University of York and would invest the funds in equipment and facilities at their Dunnington site which would enable companies to pilot production of new industrial products utilizing waste from other processes.

Discussions with BDC have led to a final plan for investing this funding in facilities in Dunnington which will expend the capabilities of the centre. Design work has included detailed consideration of the Council’s requirements under the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Legal have concluded that the proposed investment is permitted under the Act.

The grant requires completion of a Best Value form as it has not been awarded through a competitive process. This form has been duly completed.

Decision:
To award £100k UKSPF capital funding to the BioRenewables Development Centre for investment to support the Bio Yorkshire Initiative through the Rural England Prosperity Fund.

York has been allocated £5.1m from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) to implement the investment plan that was agreed by DLUHC in January 2023. In October 2022, CYC Executive gave delegated authority to the Corporate Director of Place to implement this Investment Plan, in consultation with the relevant Executive Members and the York UKSPF Partnership Board. This delegation was reconfirmed in October 2023 when Executive considered the results of a light touch review of the programme, which included allocating skills funding to the Construction Skills Initiative. Due to the senior management restructure, the decision has been made by the COO who is able to make any decisions that are delegated to any Directors.

Executive considered detailed plans for a Construction Skills Initiative at its February 2024 meeting, noting progress and reiterating their support for the project. In order to implement the project, which was due to commence in April 2024, a call for expressions of interest was made in March 2024 through the Yortender portal. Six expressions of interest were received, and the businesses expressing interest were then invited to submit grant funding applications following the process outlined in the York UKSPF Assurance Framework. The brief for the project split the work into two separate Lots, one focusing on overall project management, the development of the partnership, and supporting CYC to embed new processes to support Employment and Skills plans for major construction projects (£140k), and the second Lot focused on the provision of on-site construction training (£160k). CHY Consultancy submitted the only proposals, scoring 79/100 for Lot 1 and 77/100 for Lot 2, above the threshold score of 70/100 for projects to be fundable for a total value of £299,740.

UKSPF funding must all be spent by the end of the current financial year, when the current programme finishes and any unspent funds must be returned to Government. It is hoped that future equivalent funding will be available to extend and expand the CSI after that date, with the expectation that this would be through the new Mayoral Combined Authority.

Decision: Award £299,740 to CHY Consultancy to deliver the York Construction Skills Initiative.

Purpose of the Report:
The report details the latest (2023) air quality monitoring results for York and progress on achieving measures in York’s current Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP3). The report also highlights priorities for 2024/25 and measures to deliver further improvements in air quality.

Executive will be asked to.
The Executive is asked to note the contents of the report (and approve the submission of the Annual Status Report to DEFRA, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) including the generally improving trend in air pollution in recent years.

Since COVID bus passenger numbers on some routes have remained below pre-COVID levels.

As a result of this and increased operating costs, Connexions Buses, the commercial operator of service 13 (Copmanthorpe to Haxby West Nooks) announced their intention to reduce the weekday bus resource on this route from 4 buses to 3 from Oct 2023.
Council officers were advised that the service would remain half-hourly but no longer serve Flaxman Croft (Copmanthorpe) or West Nooks (Haxby). To delay the change, in order to allow sufficient time to complete a review of its tendered network, the Council began funding the service at a cost of £450/day.

At Executive on 20th Feb 2024, a decision was made to withdraw this funding at the end of May and to seek a lower-cost alternative to maintain a service to West Nooks. It was decided that there were no affordable alternatives to maintain a service to Flaxman Croft. Arrangements have subsequently been put in place with First York to operate an approximately hourly variation to service 1 (numbered 1A), at a cost of £270/day from BSIP to service West Nooks

The operator (Connexions), has approached the Council and advised that their new 3-bus half-hourly timetable is proving to be extremely unreliable and that attempting to continue with it would carry a high risk of the entire service 13 ceasing to operate in the coming weeks. In order to avoid a repeat scenario of introducing an unreliable timetable, Connexions have advised that it will take some time to properly draw up a workable 3-bus schedule.

As part of this request, the operator has asked CYC for a continuation of financial support until the timetable change date at the end of the summer school term on 21st July. At a cost of £450/day, this equates to approximately £16k, which is currently affordable from BSIP revenue but would reduce the financial headroom should upcoming tenders prove to be more expensive than projected.

Whilst CYC could be accused of rewarding a bus operator for poor planning, the alternatives would have an immediate negative impact on residents in the affected areas.

The operator has stated that there are a number of pupils using service 13 to travel to places of education along the route- eg. Joseph Rowntree, Huntington, All Saints and York College. It will take some time to quantify that figure- either by analysing the ticket machine data or manually surveying buses.

Only a small number of residents in West Nooks and Flaxman Croft would have been affected by the 2nd June change, whereas this issue now potentially affects the entire route.

Other than the withdrawal of the aforementioned sections, the 20th Feb Executive report (para. 52) simply committed that “The majority of the route currently taken by the number 13 will remain the same.” The operator is now telling the Council this is now not the case.

Extending the financial support for service 13 until 21st July would result in a delay to the implementation of the Executive decision, however the decision to remove weekday financial support from service 13 would still ultimately be implemented, just seven weeks later than originally agreed.

The situation that has arisen is an operational based problem that affects the entire route and could not be foreseen by the matters considered in the 20th February Executive report. In order to protect the interests of passengers across the entire route, but particularly the majority of Copmanthorpe village which would otherwise be left with no bus service, a quick decision is essential. It is not possible to convene an Executive Member Decision Session to consider this matter due to both the pre- election period and only having a day to confirm arrangements with the operator.

Implications - Legal:
1. The awarding of the additional temporary subsidy is within the delegated powers of the Director of Environment, Transport and Planning
2. The bus service contract must be extended and/or modified in accordance with the contractual terms and conditions and in accordance with CYC’s Contract Procedure Rules and the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

Comments/Observations:
The service 13 has historically been a commercial service operated with four busses, with no funding from the Council. In late 2023 the operator declared that the service was no longer financially viable and wished to reduce the length of the service by no longer servicing Flaxman Croft and West Nooks which would allow the operator to deliver the service with three busses.
The Council made a decision to inject short term funding to the operator to continue the extent of the service so it could be properly considered by the Council.
At Executive in February 2024, it was determined that to allow the operator of the 13 to reduce the service and move to a three bus operation, but that alternative arrangements would be made for West Nooks, which has been implemented.
The new three bus operation of the service has proven unreliable and is a poor customer experience. The operator has said they may withdraw the whole service 13 in response.
The impact of that would be significant on the users of the service and therefore it is in the Council’s interests to work with the operator and find a better solution by working with the operator to deliver the Executives intent from February 2024 by reviewing the timetabling.

Decision: To extend the implementation date of the Exec Decision, by continuing the current short-term arrangement with Connexions until 21st July 2024 in order to allow sufficient time to plan a workable commercial alternative. Therefore the council will fund the Flaxman Court and West Nooks elements of the service until the 21st of July