Transforming Cities Fund
In June 2020, Nottingham and Derby City Councils received over £160m from the Department for Transport’s Transforming Cities Fund (TCF) to build a package of transport schemes aimed at strengthening connections between major employment sites, upgrading public transport, and improving facilities for people on foot or bike – an increasingly important investment following the declaration of a climate crisis in 2021.
All proposals meet two key TCF objectives:
- Supporting commuting, employment, development and economic growth
- Reducing carbon
Transforming Cities Fund proposals
Working collaboratively with Nottingham City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council will be supporting the delivery of a number of schemes that were submitted in the TCF bid and are located on the County Council’s road network.
Since the original TCF bid was submitted in 2019 there has been a significant increase in the estimated project costs due to wider economic pressures. The county council has carried out a detailed review of its TCF proposals to ensure that these remain affordable and continue to offer value for money.
Several schemes have been removed from the programme as they are no longer affordable within the available budget, but the council will continue to seek alternative ways of funding these schemes in future.
Find out more about the review of the TCF proposals
A revised package of TCF proposals has now been agreed to make the most of the available funding opportunity:
Widening works will be undertaken to the existing shared use footway between Mile End Road and Private Road Number 1 to improve the current facilities along the A612.
The proposed scheme enhances the existing pedestrian and cycle route along the A612 and forms the first phase of long-term aspirations to improve pedestrian and cycle facilities between Nottingham and the east of the city.
A programme of upgrades to real-time bus information displays and other bus stop infrastructure at bus stops within the county network. This includes the continuation of the Robin Hood network branding at relevant stops.
Where existing real-time bus information displays are being replaced, these will be re-used at other stops in Nottinghamshire, outside of the Robin Hood network, to increase coverage across the county.
Find out more about Nottinghamshire County Council’s real time bus information
Traffic signals at 64 junctions will be upgraded with specialist software to detect late running buses. Once a late running bus has been detected, the software enables the green phase of the traffic signals to be extended, allowing the bus to clear the junction. This will improve bus journey time reliability across the network.
What’s next?
Following the review of the TCF proposals within Nottinghamshire, work is also ongoing to investigate whether there are other sustainable transport measures that could be delivered using any available underspend. This will depend on obtaining agreement from the Department for Transport to extend the current funding deadline into the next financial year 2024/25.
