City Deal spending £1m a year on administration costs
A NEW transport centre could change the way patients and visitors access Wales’ biggest hospital.
University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff is planning to build a “sustainable transport hub” near its main entrance.
The hub would feature new bus bays, a building with a waiting area, bike store and coffee shop, and a new covered walkway and a bridge link to the multistorey car park.
It would be built on a patch of grass in the Millennium Garden, at the front of the site, if Cardiff council allows the plans.
The current disabled car park, near the Millennium Garden, would be retained as part of the plans but would be resurfaced.
A statement submitted to the council says the aim of the transport hub would be to reduce the reliance of site users on cars to reach the hospital.
It says: “The aims of the project are to improve pedestrian safety, the efficiency of pedestrian/vehicular movements around the site, provide additional secure cycle parking facilities and encourage sustainable transport choices.”
The hub building would have a bicycle repair facility, and spaces for 200 cycles. THE £1.2bn Cardiff Capital Region City Deal bill for administration costs is £1m a year, the chairman has revealed.
The City Deal, which involves 10 local authorities, aims to create 25,000 jobs across the region and bring in £4bn of private sector investment by 2036.
Speaking at a recent Bridgend County Borough Council scrutiny committee meeting on the City Deal, Councillor Jane Gebbie said: “We see lots of figures being bandied about and it’s lovely to see that amount of money being spent in our regions.
“However, I want to know what the cost of the administration of this deal is going to be because I don’t want it all to be spent on a new office for new companies with new business models, and actually the money isn’t going anywhere.”
She added: “I’m really concerned about the administration of the City Deal – how much have we already spent when we haven’t actually achieved anything?”
Responding, chairman of the City Deal, and Rhondda Cynon Taf council leader, Andrew Morgan, said the administration costs were about £1m a year.
This includes auditing costs, as well as covering the cost of the regional transport authority, the regional housing programme and the skills and digital programme.
Councillor Morgan said: “We have to do due diligence on projects when they come forward like the IQE project which cost us several hundred thousand pounds to make sure that what we were investing in would see a return.
“However, the funding for that project is largely a loan and we should recoup all our money in time.”
He said the funding was scrutinised by the 10 leaders at a joint cabinet on a quarterly basis, adding: “We are trying to bring together some functions and centralise them so hopefully we are not duplicating those costs across the different authorities. It needs to be scrutinised and I can assure you as council leaders we do ask questions and challenge when its needed.”
The regional cabinet consists of the 10 council leaders from the 10 local authorities with the council chief executives attending as officers to provide advice.
Bridgend council leader Huw David added: “The Future Generations Commissioner An artist’s impression of plans for a new transport hub at the University Hospital of Wales and the Welsh Audit Office are also scrutinising very carefully what we are doing and of course we have a joint scrutiny committee in Bridgend scrutinising in detail the work of the City Deal.”
Bridgend council’s chief executive Darren Mepham told councillors certain measures were required when it came to governance and scrutiny which cost money but the administration team was “very lean” when compared to other City Deals across the UK.
He said: “If you look at the likes of the West Midlands or Manchester or Liverpool, they have teams that are huge, literally hundreds and hundreds of staff.
“That’s partly because they have combined authority models which we don’t have, and different functions, but even if you strip out those functions they are more heavily resourced than we are.
“That’s partly deliberate on our part we don’t want to spend all the money on administration but we are also trying to galvanise other resources outside of the local authority so university and private sector resources.”
Both the UK and Welsh Government are contributing £500m each to the City Deal while £100m is coming from the European Regional Development Fund.
The 10 local authorities are providing a minimum of £120m over the 20-year period.
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