Agenda item

Report of the Interim Director of Transition, York and North Yorkshire LEP

Considered –

A report by James Farrar, Interim Director of Transition, York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership, regarding the allocation of £7m of funding to a programme of Capital and Revenue projects that would deliver significant carbon reductions and contribute to York and North Yorkshire’s ambition to be net zero by 2034.  The report contained recommendations for an over commitment of the funding for additional schemes to be funded from the mayoral Investment fund.

James Farrar introduced the report and gave an overview of the key points, as summarised below:

·       The funding consisted of £6m capital funding for delivery of net zero projects and £1m revenue funding for development of projects

·       Applications had been invited for both elements at the start of the year and following initial assessment a prioritised list had been put forward to full business case stage.  External consultancy had undertaken an independent appraisal process and recommended the projects outlined at Section 4 of the report for approval. 

·       Five key project areas were included in the initial route map, and all except industry were included in the current list of projects.

·       Geographically, projects were based in all NYC ACC areas and the City of York

·       The table at 4.3 outlined the proposed revenue programme totalling £905k, and the table at 4.6 gave details of the proposed capital projects which totalled £6.281m.  An additional £360k of management costs were associated with the project.

·       The total programme budget of £7.536m was an over-commitment, but this was recommended as some slippage was to be expected as the target completion date was March 2025, and the additional £536k could be underwritten if all activity took place.

Councillor Claire Douglas thanked officers for their work on this, the first significant investment of the Combined Authority.  The strong commitment to making the region carbon negative and partnership working was noted. 

The voting members of the committee indicated their unanimous support for the recommendations in the report.

Resolved –

That subject to the final Net Zero programme level business case being approved by Central Government and the release of the £7m grant funding, the Joint Devolution Committee resolves to:

1)    Delegate authority to the NYC Corporate Director for Finance (S151) to accept the £7m grant funding.

2)    Approve £905,514 towards the proposed revenue programme (as detailed in section 4.2).

3)    Approve £6,281,224 towards the proposed capital programme (as detailed in section 4.5).

4)    Approve £350,000 towards the programme management costs (for the purposes set out in section 4.8).

5)    Note that the total Net Zero programme budget is £536,738 more than the grant available.

6)    Approve this over commitment (up to a maximum of £536,738) to be funded from the Mayoral Investment Fund.

7)    Delegate responsibility to MCA Director of Transition, in consultation with the Local Authority Chief Executives, to approve any minor adjustments to proposed grant funding amounts to projects.

8)    Note that the delivery of the proposed Net Zero Fund programme will lead to substantial Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions reductions, making a significant contribution to York and North Yorkshire’s ambition to be net zero by 2034.