Returning to the story of Hampshire County Council’s floundering A326 Waterside Improvements, a close look at its business case shows just how dodgy it is, even before the shelving of a major piece of infrastructure used to justify the scheme.
As I have reported, Hampshire has said it is committed to progressing the £187m schemes which is awaiting a decision on Large Local Majors (LLM) funding, despite Associated British Ports (ABP) shelving the Solent Gateway 2 project, which was mentioned 17 times in its outline business case (OBC).
The OBC gives the scheme an adjusted BCR of 0.958, meaning that quantified benefits remain slightly below costs even after recognised wider economic impacts are included, but also includes an “indicative” BCR, of 1.927, produced by adding £157.6m of Level 3 development-related benefits.
When you look into the “development-related benefits”, it gets even more dodgy.
For example, £99k of benefits have been identified from land value uplift from housing development within the “core catchment area”, noting that for major economic development impacts
TAG A2.2 requires evidence of dependency on the transport intervention – clear articulation of ‘dependent’, ‘facilitated’, and ‘accelerated’ development.
But it adds:
Estimated economic benefits along the A326 corridor (the catchment zone) are based on developments assessed to be facilitated by the A326 scheme, given that the sites rely on the A326 for their primary means of vehicle access.
This reasoning is flawed to say the least. The A326 already exists. No evidence is provided that the transport intervention contributes anything to possible developments.
Cllr Vicky Joynes of Hythe and Dibden Parish Council has called on the Department for Transport to require “an updated, transparent appraisal and a fair comparison with smaller alternatives” before approving funding. She said:
HCC previously confirmed that its traffic forecasts included SG2 and that it had not assessed the road scheme without that development. Saying the road improvements are not dependent on SG2 does not answer what its withdrawal means for the forecasts, benefits or appropriate scale of investment.
But she also questioned whether the OBC was inflating the benefit cost ratio (BCR):
Residents deserve a convincing explanation of why this particular road package represents good use of public money. HCC’s own business case reports an adjusted benefit-cost ratio below one. Its stronger headline result relies heavily on development-related benefits whose underlying evidence needs proper scrutiny.
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