Local Transport Board Meeting Note

10.30-12.30 Friday 2^nd September 2016

Cranworth Room, County Hall, Norwich

Board Attendance:

Mark Pendlington (Chair)

New Anglia LEP

Mark Stanton

New Anglia LEP

Tig Armstrong

Norfolk County Council

Steve Hooker

Network Rail

Jamie Burles

Abellio Greater Anglia

Dave Watson

Suffolk County Council

Cllr James Finch

Suffolk County Council

Sue Roper

Suffolk County Council

Graeme Mateer

Suffolk County Council

Richard Perkins

Suffolk Chamber of Commerce

Steve Wickers

First Bus

Jeremy Cooper

Ipswich Buses

Ali Clabburn

Liftshare

Tracy Jessop

Norfolk County Council

Cllr Martin Wilby

Norfolk County Council

Vince Muspratt

Norfolk County Council

Cllr Stuart Clancy

Norfolk County Council

Nigel Allsopp

Highways England

Karl Murphy

DfT

Christopher Soule

Country Land Owners and Business

Associations

Amy Harhoff

Transport for the North

Ollie Starbuck

East Midlands Trains

Kyle Pratt

East Midlands Trains

Hannah Grimes

Norfolk County Council

Carolyn Barnes

East Suffolk Councils

Apologies:

Andrew Bell

Norwich International Airport

Charles Horton

Gt railway

Chris Starkie

New Anglia LEP

David Cumming

Norfolk County Council

Emily Manser

New Anglia LEP

Graeme Ferguson

Mag airports (Stansted)

John Dugmore

Suffolk Chamber of Commerce

Larry Heyman

Gt railway

Paul Davey

Felixstowe port

Paul Horne

Suffolk County Council

Nick Burfield

Suffolk Chamber of Commerce

Richard Pace

Norwich International Airport

Richard Schofield

Network rail

Richard Tunnicliffe

Confederation of British industry

Simon Amor

Highways England

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Cllr Guy McGregor

Suffolk County Council

1. Welcome and Introductions

The Chair welcomed delegates and thanked them for their commitment to the LTB.

2. Minutes and Matters Arising

The 18^th July minutes were agreed subject to the following changes:

 Richard Perkins was an apology.

 Move Cllr Guy McGregor’s attendance.

Action: Chris Starkie to recirculate the brief on new DfT ministers (action from the

last Board meeting).

3. Feedback from NALEP Board

Mark Stanton updated the Board:

The New Anglia LEP is currently bidding for Growth Deal Three. Government has

informed the LEP that Brexit won’t impact on the decisions or possible funding,

but that a negative decision on devolution might have a detrimental impact. The

final proposal was submitted on the 25^th July, following a challenge session with

Lord Heseltine on the 14^th July. The full Growth Deal Three bid was signed off by

the LEP Board on the 20^th July and was shared with local authority leaders and

Chief executives. The bid was for a programme of schemes.

4. East Anglia Rail Franchise

Mark Pendlington congratulated Jamie Burles on Abellio Greater Anglia’s

success in winning the bid for the East Anglia Rail Franchise. Mark also wanted

to say a huge thank you to everyone who had contributed to the campaign. There

is a GEML Task Force conference next week at Westminster, to be attended by

the new Rail Minister Paul Maynard. Other members of the Board also put

forward their congratulations and support for Abellio.

Jamie Burles also thanked everyone for their support and for speaking with one

voice and lobbying, as it helped DfT accept the ambitious document. Abellio have

operated two short franchises which often result in little investment. The region

has waited for a long term franchise to help encourage a large investment.

Jamie informed the Board of the main headlines within the winning bid:

 This will be a 9 year franchise to 2025.

 There will be a full fleet replacement which is the biggest in history. The

carriages currently are on average 27 years old. The new trains will arrive

within a space of 18 months starting from 2019.

 The main aspects from a customer perspective are aircon, wifi, a better

passenger environment and a more reliable service.

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

The trains will be much more reliable as the newest trains operate 70,000

miles before a fault occurs, however the current 40 year old trains can operate

for as little as 10,000 miles before a fault can occur.



There will be new trains across the Board with a tripling of capacity when the

new trains come in.



The Diesel engines will power the trains where they don’t operate under the

wires. The new Swiss trains are very effective in extreme temperatures.



Currently Abellio and Network Rail are in discussions around validating the

timetables and are discussing what can be done in the future to improve the

rail network.



There will be a Norwich to Stansted direct route and more services to Great

Yarmouth. There will be an additional 1134 services a week with a 55%

capacity increase to London. There will also be digital information displays on

every station. There will be free wifi, automated delay repay and an additional

72 extra carriages will be brought in to bolster services from January.



Abellio have 18 months to roll out the new fleet with the introduction of 1050

vehicles.

In the following discussions it was asked whether there were talks around

creating new and improved lines looking to the North and West. There are

discussions occurring around the ideas but there needs to be a case put

forward.

There was consensus that the work of the GEML task force now moves into a

new phase, to include lobbying for the required investments by Network Rail

and while supporting Abellio in its new franchise, monitoring performance

standards including customer service in coming years.

Governance: Directions of Travel

Mark Pendlington extended his thanks to Amy Harhoff, Strategy Director,

Transport for the North, for attending the Board meeting.

Amy Harhoff gave a presentation about the Transport for the North (TfN):

 Transport for the North covers 11 enterprise areas comprising of City and

non-city areas along with different partnerships.

 The area contains 16 million people with a few core cities.

 TfN decided there were four areas where collectively as a region the north

had a particular specialism, these were advanced manufacturing, digital,

health innovation and energy. Having an evidence based position

provided a competitive advantage.

 Looking at a transformational growth scenario provided evidence that

there could be an increase of £97 billion GVA but this could only happen

with investment.

 The Strategic transport plan looks long term accounting for the 5 year

political cycle and route investment strategy. The plan looks long term and

is a 5-10 year multi investment plan looking at a multi modal approach.

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 The projects have been prioritised by looking at deliverability and the best

value for public sector money and economic outputs.

 The document is a living document but has to be relevant long time. TfN

looks at rail, freight and logistics. A report will be released on Monday

about freight.

 TfN will become the first SNTB in spring 2017 providing a greater role for

observing objectives and having influence on investment. Critically it looks

at how to get investment right with the private sector.

 It is important to have relationships with multiple agencies it is not about

devolution. Authorities are updating their transport plans and TfNs work

needs to understand these plans to. There will be a strategic transport

plan draft by spring 2017 which will be consulted on.

In the following discussions the following points were made:

 The East integrated transport strategy should look wider than just Norfolk

and Suffolk and look at all modes of transport.

 Deciding on the geography of the area is difficult. Working closely with

neighbours and being clear on the purpose of strategy are paramount to

creating an effective outcome.

 Having an independent economic review to inform plans without repetition

of other work helps to form the plans. To create an effective plan there

needs to be quality evidence and everyone needs to be clear on what you

are asking and why.

 The strength of the north is the ability to publically speak to Government

with one voice. Difficult to get everyone to agree. Funding comes directly

from government for transport for the North.

 For the North future assumptions on behavioural and technological

change would not change views on many planned roads.

 TfN sees itself as more of an influencing body at the front end not and not

directly related to the delivery aspects.

Mark thanked Amy for attending the meeting. Amy informed the Board that the

TfN CEO was prepared to meet the LTB when our plans had progressed further;

and that there is an open invitation to members to visit TfN.

Action: Circulate slides. Consider all points made in the first draft of our

integrated transport strategy.

Integrated Transport Strategy

Tig Armstrong updated the Board on progress with the integrated transport

strategy:

Norfolk County Council, Suffolk County Council and the New Anglia LEP have

been working together to engage a consultant and produce a first report.

Mouchel has been invited to help with the work as they have worked with TfN

and have lots of in house expertise. Mouchel have been asked to provide a

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promotional document for the East for other business investors covering the

strategic visioning. Behind this document there will be a document explaining

where the investment opportunities still are.

Mark agreed and pointed out the need to align Mouchels work with expertise on

the Board.

Action: All to send any comments back on their response to the brief.

In the following discussions the following points were made:

 The Board needs to look wider than Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex wants to

do a project covering the east. The transport strategy should be related to

economics.

 It was suggested that key to the work is competitive advantage and it sits

in an innovation strategy.

Action: Hold a special meeting which is more creative and innovative possibly

inviting Giles.

Action: Circulate Mouchel brief.

Sub National Transport Bodies

Tracy Jessop presented to the Board:

In the following discussions for the following points were made:

 There have been discussions in the past few days about the pros and

cons with joining up with different areas.

 There is a danger that if the Board could try to focus on too many things

when the strength of an SNTB would be to maximise the collective voice.

The strategy will need to be clear about a few key projects that everyone

agrees and supports and focus on those.

Action: Norfolk County Council and Suffolk County Council to write a headlines

and direction of travel paper before next meeting. The Board needs to see

progress at every meeting.

Action: Circulate the slides.

Growth Deal

Mark Stanton updated the Board:

There was a call for projects over the summer which received significant interest.

The LEP has awarded 300 grants and helped find £97 million of private match

funding to June 2016.

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Mark also informed the Board about the MIPIM event in London on 19^th October

which provides opportunities for international investment in the East. There is a

pitch book of investable opportunities which can be updated. The Board were

also informed of the new LEP Board member Jeanette Wheeler of Birketts who

is replacing David Marsh.

Note: The LEP AGM is being held on Tuesday 27^th September the meeting will

be at 2pm with lunch at 12.30pm. Mark is happy for any member of the Board to

attend. If anyone wishes to attend the meeting please can you contact Charlotte

Purves.

Transport and Infrastructure Updates

 Major schemes: Great Yarmouth has received funding from the fast track

local majors fund. Suffolk already have funding for the Lowestoft Third

River Crossing and the Upper Orwell Crossing.

 Roads- Highways England have been consulting on RIS2 and route

strategies and have received a massive response. Highways England

expect a first glimpse at the consultation outcomes in October or

November.

 Air- to be circulated.

 Rail- East Midlands trains are sending out an invitation to tender and are

expecting expressions of interest in December this year.

 Network Rail- are improving digital investment in the railway starting in

Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

 Buses- First Group is investing in new vehicles and they are in their third

year of refurbishment with wifi added to a number of buses.

 Sustainable transport- Liftshare have received record growth in the first

part of this year. Uber are also doing very well throughout the country,

everyone needs to understand the demand locally.

 DfT- Calls for projects for the access fund finish on the 9^th September.

Both Norfolk and Suffolk are submitting bids.

Action: Circulate Stansted update.

Action: December meeting East Midlands trains to talk to the Board about the

next franchise and inform the Board on how they can help.

10. AOB

Chris Soule wanted to inform the Board about issues around roadworks and how

they affect farmers during the summer. In addition it has taken a long time to get

a strategic consultation process for rail, there are a lot of farmers who are

unhappy about closures of level crossings. Farmers have not been able to put in

their views around rail into a consultation.

Cllr James Finch endorsed Chris Soule’s point. Network Rail undertook to follow-

up on this point.

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