Agenda item

Members were presented with the Draft Regional Transport Plan (RTP) for the South West Wales region.

Officers highlighted that they were seeking approval, from the South West Wales Corporate Joint Committee, to commence the public consultation process for the Draft RTP. It was stated that the proposed timeframe for the consultation was around eight weeks, starting in early February 2025.

Reference was made to the Draft Regional Transport Delivery Plan (RTDP) which consisted of a list of schemes that aligned with the RTP. It was noted that further work around scoring and evaluating the schemes needed to be carried out; the prioritisation tool, detailed at Appendix 5 of the circulated report, would assist Officers with this. The Committee was informed that this process will help to produce a robust prioritisation of the schemes to aid the bidding process over the next five years. It was added that Officers will be working in parallel with the public consultation, to try and understand what the priority of those schemes would be.

It was mentioned that Officers had received positive indications from Welsh Government in terms of the progress that the region was making to deliver the RTP; Welsh Government have provided some initial comments, which will form part of the feedback from the consultation.

A discussion took place in regard to the array of consultation events and plans that were proposed in order to try and encourage as much engagement as possible; this included public and stakeholder events. Officers explained that they would also be reaching out to the business community, through the appropriate bodies that represent their interests. The results from the previous consultation highlighted that there was limited engagement from younger people; Officers were working with schools and colleges to try and improve engagement for the upcoming consultation.

Members were informed that although discussions were taking place with Welsh Government in regard to funding, Officers were yet to receive final clarity on funding or the mechanisms by which the funding will be distributed for the RTP from 2026 onwards.

Reference was made to the risks associated with this work; failure to approve the final version of the RTP and submit it to Welsh Government by the summer of 2025, could result in the grants (from 1 April 2026) being delayed.

Officers explained that future reports would be brought back via the usual reporting mechanisms of the SWWCJC; which included the Regional Transport Sub Committee, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the SWWCJC. However, it was noted that in May 2025, the finalised list of schemes would be presented to the Cabinet of each Local Authority, before being brought to the relevant SWWCJC meetings; this was due to the fact that the powers to deliver the schemes were held within the Local Authorities.

Following the overview from Officers, Members thanked Officers and acknowledged the significant amount of work that had gone into this process thus far.

RESOLVED:

·       That the verbal progress reports from officers, on the Regional Transport Plan development workstreams, be noted.

·       That the Draft Regional Transport Plan and supporting documents be approved to go out to public consultation.

·       That the latest Regional Transport Plan development work programme be approved.