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South Yorkshire’s Sustainable Transport Exemplar Programme – Update November 2015

As part of the Sheffield City Region Growth Deal, announced in 2014, a £16.3m investment allocation was made towards a Sustainable Transport Exemplar Programme (STEP). Let’s look at how that’s going. This information is from item 13 of this meeting.

STEP Funding Profiles
STEP Funding Profiles

The full list of projects is available here. The ones in Sheffield are in the table below. As of 30/09/2015 no money had been claimed.

2015/16 Funding as 02/03/2015
2015/16 Funding as 23/11/2015
Claimed (30/09/2015)
Comment
SS01
Greenhill Parkway / Greenhill Avenue
£350,000
£0
£0
Project cancelled – ‘intentionally delayed, and its 2015/16 funding allocation reallocated, whilst SCC officers consider an alternate funding regime’
SS02
Grey to Green Phase 1 – Sheffield Riverside Business District
£250,000
£225,000
£0 CycleSheffield have campaigned to improve this scheme because of problems with cycling provision.
SS03
Lower Don Valley Cycle Route
£265,000 £185,000 £0
“Lower Don Valley Cycle Routes – Weedon Street Link” – I’m not sure what this is.
SS04
Upper Don Valley Cycle Route
£200,000 £375,000 £0 I’m not sure exactly what part of the route this is, but it goes from Oughtibridge to Stocksbridge, it has been called the Little Don Link before.
SS05
Tinsley – Victoria Cycle Route – Canal Towpath
£50,000 £0 £0 This project isn’t included in STEP anymore, I’m not sure if it’s been cancelled.
SS06
Sheffield City Centre Cycle Routes
£0
£50,000
£0 Design and preparation works only in 2015/16
SS07
Blackburn Valley Cycle Route
£0
£50,000
£0 Design and preparation works only in 2015/16
PS04
Chesterfield Road – Heeley Bottom
£0
£760,000
£0 CycleSheffield have strongly criticised this scheme. It includes permitting parking in 1.5m painted cycle lanes.
Total
£1,645,000
£0

So… lets me honest here, the STEP is definitely not a step up in provision, it’s more of the same, and as far as I can tell, there’s zero road space allocation towards cycling.

And the Meadowhall Car Park extension which had £670,000 allocated to it for this year? That’s been pushed out, £1.45million next year, and £1.25million the following year, £2.7million, 16% of the entire STEP budget, on a car park.

My previous blog post on this subject is here.

2 replies on “South Yorkshire’s Sustainable Transport Exemplar Programme – Update November 2015”

I don’t know how they thought they can fund Grey to Green Phase 1 with STEP money which is supposed to be spent ‘improving cycling links and other sustainable transport links across the area’. Grey to Green has bugger all to do with transport, sustainable or otherwise, the purpose is to gentrify that area of the city centre and make it more appealing for businesses.

“Lower Don Valley Cycle Routes – Weedon Street Link” is a link from Wincobank to the Five Weirs Walk. It was on the list of potential improvements to the 5WW from LSTF money but we asked them to prioritise safety improvements instead.

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