Cambridge South East Transport busway and Foxton Travel Hub plans set to be ‘paused’ due to spiralling inflation

The Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) project to create a new busway connecting villages to Cambridge is set to be ‘paused’ due to spiralling inflation - and so is the plan for a Foxton Travel Hub.

The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has revealed that it has re-evaluated its priorities as the costs of its schemes have risen beyond the levels of its government grant funding and other income.

Its joint assembly and executive board will be told costs on its projects have risen by 20-30 per cent overall - with construction material alone up by more than 40 per cent - meaning it will have to seek additional income to pursue the schemes.

Phase one of the CSET scheme, which is designed to deliver improvements along the A1307, will still proceed, the GCP said.

But it will ask the board to agree to ‘pause’ progress on the proposed busway, which would have run from the A11 via Sawston, Stapleford and Shelford to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and the new active travel route alongside it for walkers, cyclists and horse riders, similar to the one along existing guided busways.

That will be welcomed by a number of parish councils, which have raised objections to the scheme, which was originally forecast to cost £132m.

The GCP will also seek to pause work on its Foxton Travel Hub, which would have created a site with 200 car parking spaces and 150 cycle spaces to enable people travelling along the A10 to the south of the city to switch from their car to train, a bus or their bike.

Rachel Stopard, chief executive of the GCP, said: “Inflation and the impact it’s had on the price of goods and services has had a massive effect on the lives of us all – from the weekly shop to the cost of powering our homes, we have all felt the impact.

“Public and private sector organisations have also felt these financial pressures and across the country, budgets of major infrastructure projects have been crippled by soaring costs of materials and labour.

“Unfortunately, the GCP’s programme is not immune to these rising costs which is why we have spent the last few months scrutinising our budgets. We now face some tough decisions and will need to prioritise some of our transformative transport projects to ensure our communities realise the benefit of the City Deal.

“We are recommending to our members to pause phase two of the Cambridge South East Transport project and the Foxton Travel Hub. This was an incredibly difficult recommendation to put forward given the increasing congestion on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus combined with the ambition for future growth contained in the government’s recent ‘Cambridge 2040’ announcement.

“However, we need to make decisions based on the highest levels of certainty and that is why we propose to progress these schemes as far as we can so as and when more detailed growth plans and additional funding streams become available, they are ready to go.”

A paper for the joint assembly indicates that the GCP has not given up on the schemes just yet - it intends to develop both to a planning stage and work with partners to unlock new funding to deliver them in the future.

But the move will certainly cast doubt on whether the schemes will come to fruition.

Opponents of the Cambourne to Cambridge (C2C) busway would have argued that scheme - which will controversially travel through fields and Coton Orchard west of Cambridge - should have been mothballed.

But the joint assembly papers indicates that the CSET busway quite literally did not tick as many boxes as the C2C when an assessment was made of which schemes to pause, and fell short in particular on ‘value for money and financial sustainability’ (known as criteria 6).

A report says: “Although Cambridge South East Transport Strategy Phase 2 (CSET 2) has significant benefits including supporting the Biomedical Campus, it is not able to attract significant third party funding (such as developer contributions) as it is not directly linked to residential development in the current Local Plan.

“In comparison with other schemes in the programme it therefore does not fulfil criteria 6 at this time.

“Foxton Travel Hub is not able to attract significant third party funding (such as developer contributions) as it is not directly linked to the current Local Plan. It therefore does not fulfil criteria 6.”

The Foxton Travel Hub plans had already been scaled back in the face of opposition. It was initially planned to have 500 car parking spaces and 150 cycle parking spaces. But villagers warned it would be “a danger to cyclists and pedestrians” and would have no benefits to the village. The GCP responded by reducing it in size.

The paper notes the eye-watering impact of inflation on the GCP’s schemes.

“Significant inflationary pressures on the Waterbeach to Cambridge, Cambourne to Cambridge and Cambridge South East Transport Phase 2 have seen over £100million worth of increase across those three schemes,” the report says.

Overall, it says income for the GCP - which was set up as a delivery body for City Deal funding from the government - is expected to increase from £654m to £719m

But expenditure on its whole programme is now forecast to increase from £765m to £997m, meaning a budget gap has shot up from £111m to £278m.

Meanwhile, the GCP has unveiled revised proposals for a Cambridge congestion charge, as the Cambridge Independent has reported.