Peterborough council hands over transport powers to mayoral body

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority will take over all transport responsibilities from April with discussions said to be at “an advanced stage”.

The authority was granted widespread powers as part of a devolution deal agreed with the Government back in 2017, although its transport plan needed to be formally approved by both Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council to get the go ahead.

Over the past three years the combined authority - which is led by metro mayor James Palmer - has delegated its responsibilities for public transport back to the councils but that will now end with staff from both unitary authorities set to be transferred over.

Reacting to the news, leader of the city council’s Lib Dem group Cllr Nick Sandford said: “When the combined authority was set up we were told by government it was about devolving power down and not taking powers away from councils.

“Yet right at the last minute it was decided that Peterborough would lose its strategic transport powers to the mayor and CA. For that reason, and several others, the Lib Dem group voted against Peterborough City Council joining the CA.

“Since 2017 the CA has delegated funding of public transport back to the councils but they have now decided to end this arrangement. This might be justified if the mayor was prepared to exercise his bus franchising powers and effectively bring the bus network under public control but he has dithered endlessly over that.

“Recently the CA refused to provide a new bus service for the Paston Reserve development which leaves over 5,000 residents without a bus service, 10 years after the development was started. That is just one illustration of how remote and out of touch the mayor and the CA are on key local transport issues.”

When it was set up the combined authority was also given £170 million by the Government to spend on affordable homes across the county, as well as hundreds of millions of pounds to spend on projects which include the new Peterborough university.

It is also considering bidding to the Government to be granted devolved health powers.

Since being formed it has become involved in several major transport projects, including funding for the bridge at the King’s Dyke Level Crossing in Whittlesey, a right-hand turn for traffic turning towards Pondersbridge from the A605 and improvements to major road networks in Peterborough such as Nene Parkway, while also pushing ahead with a new metro which could be extended to Peterborough in the future.

It also has powers over bus franchising which has recently seen it approve a trial for a new orbital route between Peterborough City Hospital and Serpentine Green.

A combined authority spokesperson said: “The combined authority is the statutory public transport authority responsible for working with private sector bus companies to deliver subsidised services.

“Since its establishment in 2017, the combined authority has delegated this responsibility to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils, although it has sometimes directly intervened to commission extra bus services like those between Cambourne and Cambridge, to Peterborough hospital, and expected from March 1, St Ives to March.

“The mayor has also established a Bus Task Force which is considering options for making wider reforms to the way bus services are commissioned in order to improve services.

“At the request of the councils the combined authority will end the delegation and deliver the function itself from April 2021. Discussion about transferring the relevant budgets and staff are at an advanced stage.

“There will be no impact on bus services as a direct result of the transfer: contracts for subsidy between the councils and bus companies will move across seamlessly. The wider programme of reform has been affected by the Covid crisis, which has seen passenger numbers fall to around a quarter of normal levels, and by the prospect of a new National Bus Strategy from the Government.

“The work of the task force will progress during the coming months in the light of those developments.”

A Peterborough City Council spokesperson said: “We are working closely with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority to ensure that these changes around public transport provision are made as smoothly as possible for both staff and Peterborough’s bus users.”