Queensway Junction still logjammed
Is County Council awaiting LEP abolition?
HUGH SULLIVAN
In a low-key pronouncement tucked away within his budget speech to the House of Commons on 15 March, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt told MPs that the government intends, subject to consultation, to abolish Local Enterprise Partnerships. Responsibilities for local economic growth and development would be transferred to local authorities from April next year.
The statement was welcomed by local government finance leaders, who were swift to echo the Chancellor’s claims that local councils are best able to drive local growth. Tim Oliver, chairman of the cross-party County Councils Network, issued a statement endorsing the view that “county and unitary authorities are best placed to deliver local skills and business support programmes, in close collaboration with business partners”.
Those who have been following the tortuous series of delays and prevarications in completion of the Queensway Gateway road project – intended to connect the Bexhill Link Road with the A21 at Sedlescombe Road North – may have a particular focus, however, on the potential impact of abolition of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP).
The Gateway project is SELEP’s brainchild, with the twin aims of improving traffic flows between Bexhill and north Hastings and opening up adjacent land for commercial development. Its delivery has been a collaboration between East Sussex County Council (ESCC) and its business partner Sea Change Sussex. They were supposed to complete the entire project by the end of 2016 at a cost of £15m, later reduced to £10m.
Logjam
Six and a half years on, the project remains uncompleted, with work at an effective standstill while traffic regulation orders and other legal agreements are negotiated in relation to the proposed installation of a signalised junction connecting the road with the A21 at Sedlescombe Road North. But it is clear that the real logjam remains a wrangle between ESCC and Sea Change over who should pay for the still outstanding programme of works.
ESCC claim that Sea Change was to contribute £2m from its own coffers; Sea Change, on the contrary, has been denying that it has any obligation to deliver further on the project without being additionally funded to do so. SELEP has made it clear that no further contribution will be offered from its own investment pot. And its Accountability Board has been issuing threats that, if the road is not now completed by or on behalf of ESCC, that will amount to a fundamental breach of the terms of its previous £10m investment, entitling it to recoup this entire sum from ESCC.
Minutes of the SELEP Accountability Board over successive meetings show that ESCC has been dodging scrutiny of the costs of the project for the past nine months.
ESCC reports
At a meeting of the Board in July last year ESCC were instructed to lodge comprehensive progress reports on delivery and costs for their next session. The response provided by Richard Dawson, Head of Economic Development, Skills and Infrastructure at ESCC, to the Board meeting of 23 September was opaque, and the Board demanded a further update which “provides greater clarity on the total project budget”. The next report from Mr Dawson, presented to a Board meeting on 25 November, was again criticised for “the continuing lack of detail on project costs”. ESCC were instructed that their report to the Board’s next meeting in March “should contain comprehensive details on costs and affordability”.
This meeting was postponed from 10 March until 13 April because of Board members’ unavailability on the former date, giving Mr Dawson an extra five weeks to prepare his report. Yet when he delivered it last week, it was still couched in terms that gave no clue as to when or how the logjam would be resolved. He told SELEP: “Work is on-going to complete the Queensway Gateway Road project. Currently financial and contractual discussions are being undertaken between ESCC and Sea Change, and until these matters are concluded we are not in a position to state a definitive timeline to the public on the completion of the project.
“ESCC recognise the issues that this is causing to the public and the business community and remains committed to resolving the matter with Sea Change as soon as possible.”
SELEP’s minuted response at the Accountability Board meeting on 13 April was that, yet again, Mr Dawson’s report “does not provide a detailed update on the confirmed funding package and, as a result, does not provide any additional information in relation to the status of the Sea Change Sussex funding contribution … There remains uncertainty as to whether a full funding package is in place to deliver the remaining elements of the Project. Construction of the final connection with the A21 is unable to commence onsite until the funding package is confirmed.”
Sea Change’s position
A spokesperson for Sea Change commented this week in response to Mr Dawson’s latest report: “Only a small set of works remain to complete the Queensway Gateway and we’re extremely keen to see the road fully open as soon as possible. We’re continuing to seek discussions with East Sussex County Council to agree a way forward, but haven’t had a response to our proposals as yet.”
What they say they have proposed is that ESCC contracts directly with a construction firm for the final works and that they themselves project manage these works, instead of being the contracting party. They suggest that, since ESCC is the local highways authority, “this should reduce the burden of approvals required.”
However the spokesperson also said that these proposals were made at least six months ago, and they are still awaiting ESCC’s response.
So what will happen if/when SELEP itself is abolished? Existing responsibilities would be transferred to the local authority – i.e. in this case to ESCC. The threat to recoup SELEP’s £10m investment, tabled again at the meeting on 13 April, would then presumably fall away. Is this what ESCC are waiting for?
In the meantime it has been known for some months that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) is undertaking a ‘deep dive’ audit into a number of publicly funded projects managed by Sea Change. Will the outcome of that investigation be handled with any greater transparency? We wait to see.
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