Ref: PCC/D/2024/04
Executive Summary
The Commissioner approved £250,000 from reserves funding for delivering the Road Safety Grant Round.
Following unprecedented demand for the funding round, the Commissioner has increased the budget by a further £30,000 to £280,000 to prioritise road safety in West Mercia.
Proposal
The Commissioner is recommended to approve:
£30,000 to be drawn from road safety reserves to uplift the Road Safety Grant Round funding. This is to cover the over allocation of applications that were successful within the evaluation and review process.
Approval Of
West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner
I hereby approve the above proposals.
Signed: John Campion.
Part 1 – Non-Confidential/Exempt Facts and Figures
Supporting Report
The PCC Road Safety Grant Round was relaunched on the 11th of December 2023 after the previous round in October 2023 yielded minimal response.
To increase market appetite, £100,000 was added to the Dec 2023 grant round, making the total available fund £250,000; maximising the exact amount approved from reserves. The relaunch also incorporated findings from the Road Safety Needs Assessment, resulting in the grant round being split across two lots:
Lot 1 outlined criteria for initiatives up to £10k addressing local need which included VAS, white-gates, and similar popular initiatives.
Lot 2 addressed the recommendations from the Needs Assessment and sought to fund West Mercia Wide projects with up to £150k as the upper threshold limit for these applications.
86 applications were submitted prior to the closing date on the 2nd of February:
77 for Lot 1 and 9 for Lot 2.
Following evaluation of those in Lot 1, 56 applications met the qualifying criteria for VAS and Speed Indicator Devices. (SID)
Key scoring criteria included project sustainability. Bids for VAS scored highly as they come with solar powered options and many of the applications included ongoing maintenance by the Parish Councils.
VAS / SID have a low cost/high impact evidence base for reducing speeds across towns and parishes and are therefore ‘Reducing excessive harm associated with West Mercia’s Roads’ which featured as a key priority within the PCC’s Safer West Mercia plan. They also offer security and reassurance to communities within West Mercia and offer valuable data to Town and Parish Councils who monitor and maintain these signs often across multiple locations.
Due to over subscription of qualifying VAS applications to the grant round, an additional £30,000 is requested reach more communities and provide parity across West Mercia.
Strategic Considerations
This decision supports the following element(s) of the Safer West Mercia Plan:
Building a more secure West Mercia
- Make West Mercia a safer place by reducing crime and reoffending.
- Reduce the excessive harm associated with West Mercia’s roads.
Reassuring West Mercia’s Communities
- Empower communities to contribute to community safety and play a leading role where appropriate.
- Ensure all individuals and communities are dealt with fairly, equally and respectfully.
Benefits and their realisation
Anticipated benefits include:
- Consistent award across all applicants.
- Wider security and reassurance to West Mercia communities.
- More targeted areas seeing a reduction in speeds on West Mercia roads.
- More data becoming available to analyse Road Users’ speeds and the impact on RTCs.
Financial and Treasurer Comments
There is currently a balance of £1.2m of reserves held for Road Safety, of which £0.6m has been allocated to the provision of 2 average speed camera schemes, although this is currently an estimate. It is expected that over the next 3 years there will be requests to utilise the reserve to replace vehicles and equipment that are used by the road safety team. Any decision on use of this reserve should consider the competing future demand on the reserve and what the priorities are.
The request for £0.030m of resources to increase the total funding of £280k for Road Safety initiatives being considered by the PCC can be funded from the reserve balances that currently exists.
Treasurer
Signed 06/03/2024.
Legal Considerations
By virtue of schedule 11, paragraph 14 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 the Police and Crime Commissioner may do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of commissioner. That includes: entering into contracts and other agreements (whether legally binding or not) and acquiring and disposing of property (including land).
Public Access to Information
Information in this form is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI Act) and other legislation. Part 1 of this form will be made available on the West Mercia Commissioner’s website. Any facts and advice that should not be made automatically available on request are not included in Part 1 but instead in a separate Part 2 report.
Officer Approval
Deputy Chief Executive Officer
Signed: 06/03/2024.
