Here’s the comment and question I’d lodged for the City Deal meeting today:

The A10 Cambridge-Royston cycle scheme is continuing to attract match funding opportunities.

As you know, the scheme has already received several lots of Department for Transport Cycling Ambition match funding, totalling £2.5 million, plus one lot of City Deal funding, totalling £550K.

AstraZeneca, whose employees living along the A10 will use the cycle path to get to work in Cambridge, has committed two years’ worth of funding to maintain the path over and above what Cambridgeshire County Council can afford, in order to ensure a high standard.

A grant from the Department for Transport Local Sustainable Transport Fund to carry out a Personalized Travel Planning exercise has already evidenced modal shift away from single car use.

All of this match funding has enabled most of what is a shovel-ready scheme to be delivered quickly. The City Deal-funded segment will be completed in February and a local business has offered to host and provide refreshments for the grand opening in March.

In order to complete the scheme we must find a way of funding the Melbourn-Royston missing link, which traverses the Hertfordshire border.

The Greater Cambridgeshire/Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership, which includes North Hertfordshire in its economic zone, discussed the case for funding the Melbourn-Royston link at their December Board meeting. A report by cross-border, cross-party councillors was presented to the LEP for consideration and is published on the A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign website: https://a10corridorcycle.com/

The LEP authorizes to me to say to you:

• The Board was supportive of finding a multi-agency route to finalise delivery
• The Board understood the commercial and environmental advantages of the link
• That local sources should be utilised alongside private sector support
• The Board would be prepared to consider a financial ask provided other mechanisms were supportive too.

I would like to ask the City Deal Executive Board to consider joining forces with the LEP to fund the final link, which is shovel-ready and could present a finished product even this year, all sticking to City Deal core principles of collaboration, match-funding, economic growth and modal shift to reduce car use on key corridors into Cambridge.

Thank you,

Melbourn County Councillor Susan van de Ven

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