Agenda item

The Assistant Director of Procurement, Contracts & Programme Controls introduced the paper on Programme Approvals, which sought approval to progress the following 3 schemes:

·    The station access improvements at Darton and Elsecar to full approval and the award of £0.54m grant to Barnsley MBC;

·    The Town Centre to Oakwell Active Travel scheme to Outline Business Case (OBC) with the release of £2m funding to Barnsley MBC;

·    The Mass Transit project for progression to the MCA Board to approve the development cost funding release of £8.6m for urgent works and £4.34m to develop the OBC for submission to DfT in 2023/24.

The report also requested approval for the Local Authority’s and MCA to have the flexibility to manage their project allocations at a programme level where unforeseen circumstances dictate. This flexibility would be limited to projects already in the programme and any requests would be presented to the Assurance Panel and reported to the board.

It was noted that 2 projects were approved through the delegated authority of the Chief Executive due to MCA Board being postponed for the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

 RESOLVED that the Board consider and approve:

·       Progression of ‘CRSTS55 Mass Transit – Network Infrastructure (Phase 1 & 2) to MCA for approval to proceed from Strategic Business Case (SBC) to Outline Business Case (OBC) and release of development cost funding of £4.35m and early capital cost funding of £8.61mm from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) to South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) subject to the conditions set out in the Assurance Summary attached at Appendix B1;

·       Progression of ‘T0010 Station Access Improvements’ to full approval and award of £0.54m grant from Transforming Cities Fund (TCF) to Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (BMBC) subject to the conditions set out in the Assurance Summary attached at Appendix A1;

·       Progression of ‘MSF0004 – Town Centre to Oakwell Active Travel’ SBC to FBC subject to the conditions set out in the Assurance Summary attached at Appendix B2;

·       Approval of flexibilities within the TCF programme as detailed in Section 1.6;

·       Delegated authority be given to the Head of Paid Service in consultation with the Section 73 and Monitoring Officer to enter in legal agreements for the schemes at 2 and 4 above.

RESOLVED that the Board note:

Delegated approval by Chief Executive of two schemes ‘T0003 A61 Royston Active Travel Scheme’ to full approval and award of £5.2m grant and ‘T0012 A635 Active Travel Scheme’ to full approval and award of £2.4m grant. Both schemes are to be funded from Transforming Cities Fund to BMBC subject to the conditions set out in the Assurance Summary attached as Appendix D1 and D2. This urgent decision was required in light of the rescheduling MCA Board from 19 September 2022 due to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.