Dame Sarah Storey: designs not approved by TfGM

Manchester City Council’s latest Active Neighbourhood plans do not have approval – Dame Sarah Storey confirms

In a reply to our open letter Active Travel Commissioner Dame Sarah Storey has confirmed that the recently announced Phase 2 Designs and for the Levenshulme and Burnage Active Neighbourhood Scheme (LBAN) have not been brought to TfGM’s Design Review Panel.

There has been no approval from TfGM on these plans, which contradicts Manchester City Council’s (MCC) claim on their website that “we have now agreed the design taking into account feedback from the consultation, and a review process with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM).” As Storey confirms, “the scheme, in the form presented on the MCC website, has not yet been brought to Design Review Panel and so there has not been any approval from TfGM to the most recent changes.”

The revelations are the latest in a series of embarrassments for Manchester City Council. Poor management has meant that the Levenshulme and Burnage Active Neighbourhood Scheme has been severely delayed. The most recent published plans showed bizarre errors, including a speed table that was so long that it effectively raised the level of the road. Now with MCC and TFGM contradicting each other at the highest levels of management, the planning and review process appears to be in serious trouble.

We now believe the entire consultation, planning and review process to be in crisis. MCC and TfGM appear to be unaccountable for any decisions they make and both organisations are contradicting each other at the highest levels of management. 

In her reply, Dame Sarah Storey states she will be personally attending future Design Review Panel meetings, as well as meeting with council leader and Burnage councillor Bev Craig, to ensure the scheme proposals “will be rigorously reviewed and required to fulfill the objectives laid out in Bee Network standards”. This is an extraordinary step for the Commissioner to take.

Storey also confirmed that she has requested a “detailed response” to the questions asked in our open letter regarding design agreements between TfGM and MCC over who is responsible for rejecting further filters.

Financial pressure

Capital expenditure records show that MCC have now committed nearly £900,000 of the Council’s own highways budget to install the current filters and fund further detailed design work. If MCC do not get approval for the scheme, this money cannot be claimed back from the Mayor’s Challenge Fund, meaning MCC must find make up for the shortfall from elsewhere in its dwindling general funds. So, getting high-quality plans in place would not only improve active travel in our community significantly, it would mean more money for social care, libraries and parks accross the city than would otherwise be the case. At the sane time, Dame Sarah Storey must ensure TfGM must not cave-in to MCC’s attempts to force through a sub-standard scheme to protect their own budget. To do so would put the entire Bee Network project at risk.

Streets for People are also hearing rumours that part of the reason for the latest watering-down of the scheme is because of the rising costs of construction. Let us put to one side that MCC are fully to blame for the scheme’s exposure to these costs. It is their dithering and delay which has inflated away a good chunk of the available funding. But TfGM must either allocate MCC more money to cover the inflation in costs, or insist that MCC uses its available funding more wisely. That means much more filtering, which is a cheap but highly effective intervention and fewer speed bumps, which are highly ineffective and very expensive.

A ray of hope

Streets for People very much welcome this statement by the Active Travel Commissioner. We see this level of direct involvement as a significant step by her office to hold councils to account, ensuring designs are not watered-down and that the high ‘Bee Network’ standards – agreed by all Greater Manchester councils – are upheld.

We take this opportunity to offer our support to Dame Sarah Storey and her office in preparation for the Design Review Panel. Our organising committee members are ready to provide detailed information on the original vision for the scheme and a full briefing on the plans, changes and shortcomings of MCC’s consultation processes to date.

Read the full letter here. If you are interested in helping our campaign, please get in touch at streets4peoplelb@gmail.com