Background:
The A249/A2 Key Street junction is the main junction for traffic from Maidstone, the M20 and M2 serving the A2 communities and Sittingbourne to the east. The A249/B2005 Grovehurst junction is the main junction to the north serving the Sittingbourne Northern Relief Road and expanding residential and business communities at Kemsley and Iwade.
Swale Borough Council Adopted Local Plan 2017 seeks to deliver nearly 6500 new homes over the plan period, but this is undeliverable beyond 2022 as there are road network capacity constraints and air quality concerns.
The objective of both schemes is to increase capacity to reduce congestion and to assist other modes of travel to support the delivery of the Local Plan housing target and to contribute to the needs of the emerging Local Plan 2022-2038.
In November 2019, the Swale Transport Infrastructure bid in respect of the A249 junction related elements was accepted by Government for Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) support of £38.1m. A condition of the funding is that the improvements must be delivered by 2024.
Decision type: Key
Reason Key: Expenditure or savings of more than £1m;
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Division affected: Sittingbourne North; Swale West;
Notice of proposed decision first published: 23/03/2020
Decision due: Not before 21st Apr 2020 by Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport
Reason: In order that the proposed decision can be published for a minimum of 28 days in accordance to statutory requirements
Lead member: Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport
Lead director: Simon Jones
Department: Growth, Environment & Transport
Contact: Richard Shelton, Project Manager - Major Projects 03000 419550 Email: Richard.Shelton@kent.gov.uk Tel: +443000419550.
Financial implications: The schemes and scheme development will be fully funded by Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) and from S106 planning obligation contributions.
Legal implications: The formal acceptance of the HIF funding and ability to start drawing the grant down will require a Grant Determination Agreement to be entered into with Homes England. A S6 Agreement will also be required with Highways England. This allows one authority to work on another highway authority’s network but initially it secures Highways England’s involvement by the guarantee that their costs will be covered. A two stage S6 Agreement is likely to be required with the substantive aspects dealt with once the impacts to the DBFO contract and commuted aspects have been resolved.
Equalities implications: None anticipated. Outline scheme design will consider equalities aspects. An initial screening report has been completed and a full EqIA will be developed as the scheme design is progressed.