Background

On 29 September 2010, Norman Baker the Under Secretary of State for Transport announced a new funding stream – the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF).

Good news, on 5 July we heard our key component bid was successful  -  West of England receives £5 million of funding for Sustainable Travel adding up to £11 million to be spent locally  on Key Commuter Routes

The TravelWEST large project initial proposal was submitted in June 2011, and was one of eight submisisons that has been shortlised direct though to the next stage  - see news release and DfT Large project shortlist. 

The full WEST Business Case was submitted in December 2011 - see all the documents 

The Fund provides an opportunity for local transport authorities outside London to ‘build on their plans for taking forward sustainable travel measures…and to develop enhanced packages of measures that support economic growth and reduce carbon’ and ‘could also help to tackle problems of air quality and deliver improvements in public health and transport safety’.

It provides an opportunity for local transport authorities to bid for funds to bring forward packages of sustainable travel measures with a primary focus of supporting economic growth and reducing carbon. In addition these packages should seek to address supplementary objectives of tackling problems of air quality, delivering improvements in public health, improving safety, and delivering wider social and economic benefits for communities.

The Fund provides a total of £560m over the four year period 2011/12 to 2014/15, split between £210 capital (38% of the Fund) and £350 revenue (62%).

Applications to the Fund can either be for small (up to £5m) or large (up to £50m) projects. Other than in the case of joint bids agreed by DfT, authorities can only be successful with one bid.  The first bidding round for smaller projects up to £5m closes on 18 April 2011 with a decision by June.

Bids will need to include specific outputs, and to outline the way in which the achievement of these outputs support economic growth, carbon reduction and the other policy objectives of the Fund (eg road safety etc). Other factors in the assessment of the bids will be value for money, deliverability, affordability and the amount of local contribution. Guidance states that Government wishes to support as many authorities as possible through the Fund and it is therefore likely that there will be a large number of small projects funded. A second round of bids for smaller projects will be run concluding with award in May 2012.