Tif bid gets Wokingham backing

Adam Hewitt • Published 1 Feb 2010 10:00 3 Comments

WOKINGHAM borough has become the fifth authority to sign up to the Reading-led bid for millions of pounds of public transport cash.

Councillors voted unanimously on Thursday to sign at up level one to the Transport Innovation Fund (Tif) project, giving the borough equal sway at the top table as Reading. Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Bracknell Forest have all signed at levels two or three, keeping them in the process and giving them access to some funds, but making it easy to back out.

Phase one of the bid, which is already being considered by the Department for Transport, is for £52m in capital funding and £10m in revenue funding for the councils in exchange for a Low Emissions Zone in Reading town centre. The more speculative phases two and three could hike this payout to £380m, but be tied into congestion charging after 2016.

Transport chief Keith Baker reaffirmed his party's "complete opposition" to congestion charging but said: "The Tif bid is going to go forward with or without us. We would have zero influence on any proposals which would have a negative effect on our residents.

"This will provide funding for some of our major projects, such as the Wokingham Station improvements or the third Thames bridge."

His argument was the opposite of that used in Tory-controlled West Berkshire, which has stayed resolutely out of the Tif process, fearing that taking a 'seat at the table' is akin to backing congestion charging.

Reading's transport leader Cllr Tony Page welcomed the vote, adding: "I hope that this will ensure that the Government gives speedy approval to the phase one bid."

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• 

  Outside Looking In
  Unregistered User
  Feb 3, 11:39
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  You neglect to mention that the congestion charging arrangements post-2016, which are there in order to allow the bid to progress under TIF rules, are only intended to come into effect if the measures put in place by the funding fail to achieve the necessary reductions in congestion. In other words, the funding programme is front-loaded to allow works to be carried out quickly and Reading hope that the cordon charge would never be used.
  
  Slack reporting to miss this important point.
  
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• 

  Adam Hewitt
  Unregistered User
  Feb 3, 12:18
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  Those 'arrangements' have been mentioned in all the previous stories on Tif that are specifically to do with potential congestion charging - this one was about Wokingham's backing for phase one.
  
  The front-loading, as you describe it, was mentioned as recently as last week:
  
  www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/reading/articles/2010/01/29/44576
  
  To see the Chronicle's archive of coverage of Tif, visit:
  
  www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/roundup/articles/2009/11/19/43012
  
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• 

  Howard Thomas
  Unregistered User
  Feb 27, 20:29
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  If this TIF bid comes to fruition it will most certainly bring congestion charging with it !
  
  I know what it says about con charge being introduced if these other measures fail to achieve the desired fall in congestion.......but RBC have been working towards this moment for years by deliberately screwing up the traffic in Reading so that con charging can be said to be the last alternative. There are many things in Reading that could be changed to make the traffic move better , but RBC are not interested in that. It wouldn't suit that cause!!
  
  Instead they persist with planting more and more traffic lights where roundabouts used to work well, park buses in the middle of the roads so the traffic can be held up more effectively, change roads like Kings rd to be one way so London rd can become a car park, narrow junctions to prevent too much traffic getting accross, and so on and so on.
  
  RBC have no interest in sorting out the traffic.....their only interest is in creating it so that they can charge it for being there!!!!And then they have the bloody cheek to talk about junction improvements!
  
  Oh, and then there was the one way IDR scheme that the public rebelled against which if it had gone ahead would have meant that by now we would all be driving around it in an anti clockwise direction!!
  
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