Agenda item

The Joint Committee had before it a report by John-Paul Cleary which provided an update on the additional funding of £254m announced by the Scottish Government when the City Region Deal Heads of Terms Agreement was signed in January 2016.

The report recommended –

that the Joint Committee note the update on the additional funding.

(i)         With regards to Housing, Graeme Stuart (Housing Strategy and Performance Manager, ACC) advised that through the Housing Infrastructure Fund, additional funding would be made available to unlock identified housing sites of strategic importance to local authorities. He anticipated that £20million of the recently announced £50million National Infrastructure Fund would be ring-fenced to the North East of Scotland but clarification would be needed from the Scottish Government on the conditions of the funding. Mr Stuart informed the Joint Committee that he and the CRD Programme Manager would be meeting with representatives of the Scottish Government on 14 June 2016 and would raise these issues with them;

(ii)        With regards to Digital Infrastructure, John-Paul Cleary highlighted that an additional £10million had been earmarked to contribute to the delivery of digital proposals to create a digital infrastructure fund to enhance service delivery across the North East region in both the public and private sectors; and

(iii)       With regards to Transportation, Derek Murray explained that the Laurencekirk improvements would be integrated into Transport Scotland’s design and consultation framework and processes, and advised that the outcomes from the STAG appraisal had been accepted and Transport Scotland would be progressing to the next stages of the development which were the route option assessment and the preferred junction study up to the preparation of the Draft Road Orders. In terms of rail to the Central Belt, Mr Murray advised that Nestrans were in discussions with Transport Scotland and Network Rail to improve capacity and journey times and they were currently scoping the extent of works to reduce the journey time between Aberdeen and the Central Belt by 20 minutes. He added that other projects under consideration were a new local service from Arbroath to Glasgow and in the longer term a service from Inverness to Glasgow.

Councillor Thomson MSP informed the Joint Committee that he had been advised that Network Rail had been assessing projects in the North East and would be following Transport Scotland processes but advised that North East transportation developments had been little progress on the Governance for Railway Investment Projects (GRIP) process. At this point the Chair proposed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investments and Cities to ask for clarification on the incorporation of the additional Scottish Government funding of £254million into the existing City Region Deal governance arrangements. The Joint Committee agreed that a letter should be written and suggested that it should be signed by representatives of the three constituent bodies of the City Region Deal.      

The Joint Committee resolved:-

(i)        to note the update on the additional funding; and

(ii)       to request that the Chair write to the Cabinet Secretary for  Infrastructure, Investments and Cities to ask for clarification on the incorporation of the additional Scottish Government funding of £254million into the existing City Region Deal governance arrangements, and for this letter to be signed by representatives of the three constituent bodies of the City Region Deal.