Agenda item

To consider a report from the Director for Digital, Sustainability & Resources, a copy is attached as item 7.

Before the Committee was a report by the Director for Digital, Sustainability & Resources, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of these minutes as Item 7.

The Sub-Committee was informed that due to the financial pressures being faced at the Councils, Officers had been tasked with developing an alternative to joining the BTN Bikeshare framework.

In partnership with Worthing Borough Council, an extended active travel network of 75 bikes and 18 hubs had been developed which would run East to West through town centres and along the seafront in Adur and Worthing, improving sustainable and active travel, reducing car use, and improving the health and wellbeing of scheme users.

Both the capital and operating costs for the Donkeybikes extension were significantly lower than those for BTN Bikeshare.

The report brought detail of the extended scheme, and funding strategy that had been produced and requested approval to progress to the procurement stage to seek an Operator for an Adur and Worthing extended Donkeybikes scheme.

A Member asked questions in relation to funding / sponsorship options for increasing the size of the scheme. Officers advised that the originally proposed scheme did still require significant capital investment from the Council, in the region of £850k. The sponsorship applied to the revenue operating costs of the scheme. In that scheme, the sponsorship was established at the Greater Brighton level. The newly proposed scheme would have its own local sponsor. In both cases, the revenue implications are where the sponsorship money comes in. It was also noted that the Council sought to mitigate the impact on its own budgets and capital borrowing by seeking funds from elsewhere and would continue to do that as part of developing options moving forwards. The newly proposed scheme did rely on a small amount of externally funded money that was available and therefore allowed the Council to buy the bikes without additional capital borrowing.        

A Member questioned what would happen with bikes that are used to travel into Brighton & Hove. Officers advised that the proposed joint scheme with Worthing would allow for bikes to be left in Worthing with the operator rebalancing the stock. However, bikes used to travel to Brighton would need to be returned to the donkey bike hubs in Adur and Worthing. Officers agreed to provide a written answer regarding the issues and / or penalties that would be imposed in regards to bikes that were left in Brighton. 

Councillor Angus Dunn proposed the following amendment to the recommendations:- that the Council enter into a 2 year contract initially rather than a 5 year contract. The proposed amendment was seconded by Councillor Kevin Boram and unanimously supported.

The recommendations, as amended, were unanimously approved.

Decision

The Adur Joint Strategic Sub-Committee:-

1.    Agreed to work in partnership with Worthing Borough Council and proceed with the Donkey Bikes extension over the BTN Bikeshare Scheme.

2.    Delegated authority to the Director of Digital, Sustainability and Resources to run an appropriate procurement exercise to secure an operator.

3.    Delegated authority to the Director of Digital, Sustainability and Resources to enter into all relevant contracts and purchase associated with the alternative scheme.

4.    Noted that the monitoring of this scheme would be carried out under the active and sustainable travel mission in Our Plan.

5.    Agreed to an initial contract for a 2 year period. 

Call-in

The call-in deadline for the decision will be 5.00pm on the 22nd November 2022.