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CSS believes strongly in the key role that the strategic
tier of local Government can play in shaping and delivering
improvements to quality of life. Strategic authorities can
see the ‘big picture’ and have the capacity to
focus resources, while retaining local flexibility and effective
locality working with partners at all levels (sub-regional
& county, district, parish & neighbourhood).
A major challenge for local transport authorities is the
ability to fund the provision and ongoing maintenance of infrastructure
improvements needed to deliver both national and local transport
objectives, including the need to support planned growth.
Whilst we have seen a significant increase in spending on
transport since 2000, there is real concern about the ability
to deliver the improvements we believe central and local Government
wish to see made to our transport system. In addition to the
limiting effect of current and expected future levels of funding
to meet targets and to address increasing pressures and greater
customer expectations, progress is being constrained by the
funding regime currently in place.
We are keen to explore new ways of funding transport, including
the ability to raise resources locally through taxation and
other demand management measures. CSS hope that greater powers
and flexibility for local Government will be introduced as
part of any reform of the local Government finance system.
As strategic authorities with responsibility for provision
of the majority of infrastructure to support development,
we have a particular interest in Government proposals for
changing arrangements for securing developer contributions.
Introduction of tariffs or planning gain supplements could
be useful for capturing contributions from development, but
we are keen to retain flexibility to secure direct contributions
from major developments to fund the necessary infrastructure.
Strategic authorities play the lead statutory roles in waste
local planning and waste disposal. Strong national leadership
from Government to promote waste minimisation, recycling and
re-use will assist enormously, for example in relation to
packaging and use of waste derived fuels.
Preparation of new Local Development Documents for minerals
and waste will be a challenge for strategic authorities, particularly
the delivery of site specific policies as required by PPS10.
There is a strong case for strategic authorities to assume
responsibility for energy planning which frequently needs
to be considered alongside policies for waste, and by its
nature needs to be considered at a similar scale.
A strong steer is needed from Government, with incentives
within a long-term consistent framework, to ensure that collection
and disposal authorities work together to achieve efficiencies
in the procurement of long term waste management contracts.
The PFI regime needs to be simplified in order to secure best
value from the market.
On the issue of variable charging for waste, our understanding
is that it is likely to be a power rather than a duty. There
are obvious issues for local politicians to address in determining
whether to exercise such a power as a charging regime will
not be very popular with Council Tax payers. Practical issues
to be resolved will include the potential for neighbourhood
disputes, fly tipping and disputes about billing, all matters
currently the responsibility of the collection authorities.
Government sees the improvement of regional economic performance
throughout the country as a key to achieving the goal of national
economic growth. Increasingly, it appears to be concentrating
on achieving this through a focus on city regions as the panacea
for economic growth. The city region approach is becoming
conventional wisdom although its relevance and validity, remain
unproven. CSS believe a much more rigorous assessment is needed,
with other alternatives, particularly county regions, given
serious consideration.
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