Government promised £4.29m funding on condition Mill Road bridge bus gate in Cambridge was pursued, letter reveals

The government demanded that the Combined Authority mayor progressed the closure of Mill Road bridge to most private motor vehicles in order to unlock £4.29million of funding, it has been revealed.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) was given the money by the previous Conservative government for electric buses and bus infrastructure on the condition that the mayor, Dr Nik Johnson, kept a promise to pursue the closure.

But it is Cambridgeshire County Council, as highways authority for the county, that is responsible for the move.

The council, which recently held another consultation on the permanent move, has claimed the mayor did not influence its process – and said the Combined Authority does not have the powers to impose a Traffic Regulation Order to close the bridge.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act have prompted questions over whose decision it was to pursue the controversial bus gate on Mill Road.

Supporters of the bridge closure, including Labour mayor Dr Johnson, point out that a closure to most private vehicles would help pedestrians and cyclists and help clean up the air around Mill Road.

But opponents argue it would hit traders hard and only divert traffic onto other roads.

A letter from the Department for Transport in January 2022, when the previous Tory government was in power, shows Dr Johnson had agreed to pursue the bus gate on Mill Road bridge as a condition of the grant funding. This followed an experimental closure of the bridge during the Covid lockdowns under government active travel measures, which was subsequently reversed.

The letter, which was sent to the previous chief executive of the Combined Authority, Eileen Milner, said the funding would be “provided subject to the following conditions”.

It went on: “All funding for bus improvements – including this funding – will depend on your willingness to implement ambitious bus priority measures… In particular, CPCA should commit to progress the reinstatement of the bus gate on Mill Road, with access also for Blue Badge holders, as committed to by the mayor in late September (2021)”.

The £4,295,000 funding was given to the Combined Authority by the government under the Zero Emission Bus Regional Area Scheme (ZEBRA) scheme for “the delivery of electric buses and associated infrastructure.”

After winning the government funding in September 2021, the Combined Authority acknowledged publicly that the government wanted a “meaningful commitment” and that it would work with local authorities. Whitehall had been “disappointed with the outcomes of previous schemes and understandably withheld funding”, it noted.

The mayor said at the time: “I recognise the previous controversies surrounding schemes such as the Mill Road bridge closure and the Crescent Bridge active travel schemes. I support the direction of travel around restricting traffic movements in these areas, subject to a full and meaningful consultation which will deliver the improvements in air quality and lifestyle, which are so important to my ambition to placing public health at the heart of all policy.”

And he added: “Understandably, the government needs guarantees that public money for active travel schemes is being well spent and delivers for the people of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.”

The bridge was closed to traffic, but not buses, pedestrians and cyclists, under an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) from June 2020 until summer 2021. The ETRO had been expected to be reviewed after six months, but the decision was put back following a failed consultation, which Cambridgeshire County Council realised could be completed many times by the same person.

In July 2021, by a single vote, councillors voted to reopen the bridge and it was open again by early August. But in November 2021, councillors asked the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) to carry out a further consultation on the ETRO “within the context” of the GCP’s City Access strategy.

Two months after the Department for Transport letter was sent offering the £4.29m grant, in March 2022, the county council launched that consultation on whether a bus gate should be installed on Mill Road bridge.

Following this consultation, which showed a majority of respondents wanted to see the bridge closed to most private traffic, a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) was advertised and councillors on the highways and transport committee then voted in favour of a permanent bus gate in March 2023.

This would have closed the bridge to all motor vehicles, except buses, bicycles, emergency services, taxis and Blue Badge holders, who could apply to register up to two vehicles on a permitted vehicles list.

However, the High Court quashed the TRO after it was challenged by the chair of the campaign group Friends of Mill Road Bridge, Pam Wesson.

Ms Wesson successfully argued that the council had contravened regulations by failing to “provide adequate reasons for making the order” when asked for them, sending only links to a council officers’ report and a summary of the decision from March 2023 to approve the bus gate by councillors.

The council said it accepted this argument to prevent further court costs. It meant the High Court quashed the order without other challenges made by the group needing to be determined, including one of bias and predetermination.

The county council has completed another consultation on a new TRO for the Mill Road bridge bus gate this month and will put the results – now being collated – to councillors to determine if the scheme should proceed.

It was a Freedom of Information request by Friends of Mill Road Bridge member Will Bannell that revealed the letter outlining the ZEBRA funding deal.

But the county council strongly denied this week that the Combined Authority has had any influence over the decision to progress the Mill Road bridge scheme.

A council spokesperson said: “The CPCA doesn’t have the powers or the authority to implement a Traffic Regulation Order and no influence has been made on the county council in relation to the discharge of its powers and duties.”

The spokesperson added: “The consultation was carried out by the county council, as the highway authority, and followed appropriate statutory legislative requirements.”

And the council confirmed that councillors were “free to decide” when considering whether to vote for the bus gate, adding: “The county council’s decision-making process is entirely separate to that of the Combined Authority.”

That will prompt questions over why the Department for Transport laid the condition demanding the bridge scheme was progressed on the mayor and the Combined Authority which – in Cambridgeshire’s complex local authority set-up – is a strategic transport authority, but not the highways authority.

It is now not clear whether the Combined Authority will have to pay back any of the £4,295,000 ZEBRA funding should the condition of closing Mill Road bridge not be met.

The funding went towards the purchase of 30 double decker electric buses that were also part-funded by Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) and Stagecoach East, with an ambition to convert the region’s entire bus fleet to zero emission vehicles by 2030.

The government at the time also said the money must go towards bus priority measures, including considering putting bus lanes on any road where “there is a frequent bus service, congestion and the physical space to install one” and that these should part of a “whole corridor approach, including other physical measures such as: traffic signal priority, bus gates which allow buses to enter a road that prohibits access to other traffic, and clear and consistent signage”.

A spokesperson for the Combined Authority said: “The Combined Authority respects and adheres to Cambridgeshire County Council's statutory role in this matter.

“The decision regarding any potential impact on funding ultimately rests in the hands of the funding body, which in this case, is the government. The allocation and continuation of funding are typically contingent upon the alignment of projects with the objectives and priorities set by the funder. Therefore, any shifts in funding would hinge on their assessment of the project’s ongoing relevance and necessity, by government.”

The results of the latest consultation were revealed on Thursday (26 September) and show support for the bus gate outweighed objections by a narrow margin.