Opinion: Who exactly is Councillor Fitzgerald representing at the Combined Authority?

This prompted a last-minute withdrawal of the plan until the July meeting.

The crucial point is that it needs the support of the representatives from Peterborough City and Cambridgeshire County Councils or, under the rules of the CPCA, it can’t be agreed. In other words, Peterborough (in the person of our leader Wayne Fitzgerald), has a veto over the plan.

So why is this important? The LTCP (or shall we call it “The Plan”) is probably the most important policy document that the CPCA has responsibility for. It sets out a long-term transport policy for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough sub-region and includes a list of transport-related projects that the CPCA wishes to see funded.

It’s important because Government uses the Plan to determine how much transport capital funding it gives to the Combined Authority and, if there is no plan, it is unlikely that the CPCA will receive much in the way of funding for its priority projects. And that means that we the people of Peterborough and Cambridgeshire will lose out on funding for projects that help us get around our city and countryside more easily.

So what is it in the Plan that the Conservatives object to so strongly? At the Board meeting, our council leader, Wayne Fitzgerald, complained about some of his questions being unanswered. But he didn’t say why he was asking for answers to these questions now and not during the 18 months that the Plan has been in preparation and consultation. He did say he objects to “15-minute cities”, “congestion charging” and “workplace parking levies”.

The Plan sets out an overall objective to reduce road traffic by 15% by 2030, as part of the CPCA’s overall ambition to get the region to net zero carbon by 2050. This will involve reducing people’s need to travel and making it much easier for people to use greener ways of travel, such as walking, cycling and public transport. The plan sets out some options for these improvements to be planned and funded:

“15-minute cities” is an international programme to create cities where people have their work, leisure and retail needs within a 15-minute walk of their home: the Mayor of Paris has applied this concept and, indeed, it’s not dissimilar to the concept of the “New Townships” pioneered in the 1970s by the Peterborough Development Corporation in places such as Bretton and Orton.

“Congestion Charging” is being looked at for Cambridge, not Peterborough because we don’t currently have congestion even close to the required levels. These charges would be a means of funding bus improvements in the south of Cambridgeshire.

“Workplace Parking levies” were used in Nottingham to fund their tramway system.What is essential is that as a growing city which aspires to be the environment capital of the UK, Peterborough needs a transport plan that will help us all to move around our city in an efficient, green and affordable way.

If the Conservatives have genuine concerns about the Transport Plan, they should have expressed them a long time ago but they will have many more opportunities to do so as the Plan is translated from a high-level strategy into action on the ground. What they should not be doing is playing political games which could put at risk our city’s access to vital government funding needed to help us realise our growth and our transport ambitions.

We need to remind Cllr Fitzgerald that he is there to represent all the 60 councillors that were duly elected by the people of Peterborough, for the benefit of the people of Peterborough and not be exercising his power of veto at the behest of Conservative Leaders in Fenland and East Cambridgeshire.