New Cambridgeshire mayor looks to cut consultancy spending
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority's (CPCA) new mayor is looking to take work in-house and cut spending with external consultants but could re-use work from the scrapped £2bn Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) for “metro-style” solutions in other areas of the county.
The authority suspended work on the
ambitious project after Labour’s Nik Johnson won the race to be the new mayor of the combined authority at the local elections in May. Johnson said he hopes to announce more detailed plans in the autumn, however he has vetoed plans to spend £350,000 on consultants to develop new transport schemes in the local area from the CAM project.
He said: “A multi-billion-pound CAM is too expensive and, in my view, not deliverable. It won’t offer a solution to the inequalities that exist across our region. But the work done on the CAM can be used, and the latest thinking on 21st century transport can be just as well deployed in other parts of the county as it can around Cambridge.
“For example, there is real potential for new metro-style solutions for linking March and Wisbech and where cycling and walking infrastructure comes built in [...]
“And I believe we need to be extremely judicious in our use of consultants. At the Combined Authority Board on Wednesday, I did not approve £350,000 of consultancy spend on taking learnings from the CAM to develop new transport schemes in the area. We are reviewing the use of consultants in delivering transport schemes and I would always prefer to see projects worked on in-house whenever possible.”
CPCA has been tasked with a complete rethink of its local transport plan (LTP), which it says will put “compassion, co-operation and community” at the heart of any new masterplan and will see the combined authority work closely with other councils to improve journey times across Cambridge city centre and also with the forthcoming East West Rail project.
According to the CPCA, since the publication of the LTP in January 2020, there have been a number of changes to the transport landscape. That includes the Combined Authority’s approval of the initial recommendations of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Commission on Climate Change, new CO2 and electric vehicle targets published by government, including its
Decarbonsing Transport document, and the changes in travel caused by Covid-19. The development work on the revamped plan will take these changes into consideration.
Johnson added: “I want to take those projects to the public to see what they think. So in the autumn, when our transport team has developed more detail on potential improvements, we will be consulting to hear feedback and improve our plans further.”
In March this year, concept designs for the autonomous metro were revealed as part of the ongoing design process.
The designs were drawn up by three teams shortlisted to move the project forward, led by Dromos Technologies, Egis and Mott MacDonald respectively.
Designs included the vehicle, infrastructure and how the system would operate.
The designs were due to inform the project’s next business case which will also evaluate options of extending the metro to Peterborough, Chatteris and Ramsey.