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Date of meeting:
17 December 2014
Title of report:
Growing Places Fund Update
To be presented by:
Debbie Jackson, Assistant Director, Regeneration
Cleared by:
(Director)
Fiona Fletcher-Smith, Executive Director Development,
Enterprise and Environment
Classification:
Public
1
Executive Summary
1.1
This report provides an update for the Growing Places Fund including an update on
programme expenditure, notification of the withdrawal of the proposal for the
Queens Road Roundabout project by London Borough of Bexley and an update on
the West Anglia STAR scheme.
2
Recommendations
2.1
It is recommended that the London Enterprise Panel (LEP):



Notes the withdrawal by London Borough of Bexley of the Queens Road
Roundabout project making available £5.7m capital funding and that a
process for reallocating this funding will be considered at a future LEP
meeting;
Notes the update on programme expenditure and project progress; and
Notes the update on the West Anglia STAR project.
3
Introduction and Background
3.1
The Growing Places Fund Programme is currently 95% allocated to projects, with
delivery underway for many projects, and others undergoing detailed project
development and design.
4
Issues for consideration
4.1
Queen’s Road Roundabout, LB Bexley
4.2
The London Borough of Bexley has withdrawn their bid to the Growing Places
Fund for £5.7m for the Queen’s Road Roundabout project in early November. This
has resulted in a significant reduction to forecast expenditure for 2014/15.
4.3
Proposals for the reallocation of these funds will be presented to the LEP at a future
meeting.
4.4
Programme Expenditure
4.5
By end 2013/14, £3.3m of GPF funding had been spent, and to date this financial
year an additional £1.2m has been spent bringing total spend to date to £4.5m.
Current forecasts suggest that £9.7m will be spent by the end of 2014/15 (subject
to approvals, due diligence and project development work progressing as planned).
This is significantly reduced from the previous forecast of £16m primarily as a
result of the withdrawal of the Queen’s Road Roundabout project and issues arising
with other capital projects relating to funding partner activities causing slippage to
the approvals and agreement process. In particular the Central Research Laboratory
(CRL) and Hackney Wick projects were both programmed to be in contract and
commence delivery this calendar year. The CRL project cost model is being
reviewed and the London Legacy Development Corporation has been exploring
design and construction methodology alterations to achieve a more cost-efficient
project. Discussions are underway with the funding partners to understand the
overall delays to programme and spend.
4.6
Projects Delivery Highlights

Southall project – An agreement has been signed with the London Borough of
Ealing for the Southall project which will make improvements to junctions and
support site development bringing forward development of 1,500+ housing units.
Detailed design work is now underway.

London Co-Investment Fund – An agreement has been signed and the fund
launched on 4 December at City Hall. Following the completion of an OJEU
procurement process the Co-Investors of the Fund are confirmed as Wellington
Partners, Playfair Capital, London Business Angels, Angel Lab, Firestartr and
Crowdcube/Braveheart Consortium. The fund is now open to applications.

Apprenticeships – Ongoing paid for activity includes press advertising, digital
display, search and e-marketing. In addition GLA marketing continue to utilise
owned and earned channels such as London.gov web pages, City Hall blog and social
media. The GLA has grant funded the Skills Funding Agency to deliver a Direct
Mail/Telemarketing (DM/TM) campaign with a view to increasing in the number
of employers becoming a ‘qualified lead’ for Apprenticeship opportunities in London.
Activity commenced in June and so far the SFA has contacted over 43,000
businesses and created 213 Apprenticeship Starts. This performance exceeds the
agreed delivery profile.

Film London – Film London were invited to China by the Beijing Film Academy
where they promoted and presented the latest works of six London-based animation
studios to approximately 600 Chinese delegates. While in Beijing, Film London also
met with other key TV and distribution companies in the Chinese animation
industry. In October Film London attended MipCom with 31 business leads
generated.

Super-Connected Cities – As of the 27th November, more than 2000 SMEs had
received connection vouchers in London, enabling them to achieve a step change in
connectivity to their premises, showing good progress towards London's revised
target of 4270. The SCCP is working towards the implementation of a second
Mayoral letter campaign promoting the scheme the SMEs in London, which will
begin in early December. Monitoring of Wave 1 & 2 grants to public institutions
continues. In November, the first grant payments were made to completed projects
and a number of funded intuitions reported good progress towards their go live
dates.

Exports – The Mayor's Export Programme team successfully delivered the India
Marketing and Strategy programme (3 - 7 November), the pre-mission briefing for
the Singapore and Malaysia trade mission (10 November) and the ‘Celebrating
Exports’ event (w/c 10 November). The export team is leading the ‘Creative
Technology’ trade mission to Singapore & Malaysia, an intensive six days of
pitching, networking and meetings, taking place 26 November - 2 December 2014.
This mission will coincide with the Mayor's visit to East Asia during the same time.

MedCity - MedCity had a stand at the Pharma Integrates conference in London on
18-19 November, and Eliot Forster (MedCity Executive Chairman) and Sarah
Haywood (MedCity COO) spoke on two panels. On 9 December, MedCity sponsored
the Source Lounge (for potential partners, clients and investors) at the Genesis
conference in London, a major event bringing together the life sciences industry
with policy makers and trade agencies. In support of the GLA's work on establishing
an International Dementia Research Institute, MedCity published an investment
case which was commissioned from PWC. The first Angels in MedCity investor
workshop took place on 4 November, with further workshops planned for January
and February.

Skills London - Skills London 2014 took place on the 21 and 22 November. The
focus of the Project Partners (London First and Prospects) is now to complete an
evaluation of the event (to be completed by mid-December) in order to inform Skills
London 2015.
Project Partners have reported the following final figures against the contractual
KPI's;
- 196 exhibitors attended the event 45% of which were employers (equal to the
contractual target).
- 32,490 visitors attended the event (vs a target of 30,000), with 17,301 attending on
Friday and 15,189 attending on the Saturday. These included over 160 schools and
colleges from all over London.
- Over 45,000 jobs opportunities were available, which also included apprenticeships
(vs a target of 40,000).

SME Business Support – the following recent activity has taken place:
 the Business survey has been completed and will be published at the
beginning of December. The information in the report will help the LEP
SME working group identify in which areas SMEs need support.
 the BIDs programme is progressing and 4 agreements with BIDs have been
signed.
 the Growth Hub, as the business web portal is to be called, will be part of the
LEP web page and independent (as requested by the LEP members) from the
GLA web page. There will be two phases of development. The first phase
will go live in January and the second phase, with more complex tools, in
Spring 2015. The first phase will be developed internally and a review will
take place in six months to identify if the rest of the work should take place
by external contractors.
4.7
West Anglia / STAR Update
4.8
The GLA’s Investment and Performance Board has approved expenditure of up to
£1.67m to fund Network Rail’s development costs for the upgrade of the rail line
between Tottenham Hale and Angel Road, which is funded from £25m allocated by
the LEP in June 2013. The initial £1.67m funding is being used to develop the
scheme to initial option selection stage, and to refine current cost estimates. At the
STAR/Angel Road Steering Group meeting on 27th November, Network Rail
presented the latest STAR scheme cost estimate. The costs associated with the LEP
funded portion of the project have increased and there is currently a significant
funding gap based on the £25m GPF allocation. This increase has been attributed
to a number of factors, but predominantly relates to the inclusion of active provision
for four tracking (an addition to the original scope), additional construction safety
initiatives, and Access For All provisions at Tottenham Hale and Angel Road
Stations.
4.9
Network Rail are now working on a revised cost estimate which includes a costed
three track base scheme for comparison. The revised cost estimate will be issued by
11th December and the STAR/Angel Road Steering Group will reconvene on 16
December to review further. Once the revised cost estimate is fully understood, the
GLA and its partners will need to move quickly to consider any requirement for
additional funding and seek the necessary approvals. A further update will be
submitted to the LEP in March, setting out the final cost estimate and any agreed
funding package.
4.10
Until such time as the STAR scheme is confirmed, no further approvals for revenue
expenditure can be made as the £1.67m could be abortive expenditure and needs to
be held against any uncommitted revenue budget. This has an impact on the
Employer-Led Apprenticeship Creation Programme and the London Games Festival
where allocations of Growing Places Fund are sought or have been approved which
are subject to confirmation of revenue availability.
5
Equality Comments
5.1
There are no identified impacts of this decision on those with protected
characteristics.
6
Risks Arising / Mitigation
6.1
As a result of the withdrawal of the Queens Road Roundabout project there are now
unallocated funds and an ongoing risk of criticism due to slow expenditure of the
Growing Places Fund. The withdrawal of this project will be reported to DCLG and
a proposal for reallocation of funds will be brought to the LEP at the next meeting.
6.2
There remains a risk relating to the West Anglia/STAR project of that on
completion of the option selection stage the costs of the STAR scheme will exceed
available funding.
7
Financial comments of the Executive Director Resources
7.1
The updated forecast profile of spend is shown in the table below. Approximately
half of the total GPF spending is now expected to be incurred in 2015-16.
GPF
forecast
spending
2012-13
(£m)
2013-14
(£m)
2014-15
(£m)
2015-16
(£m)
Future
(£m)
Total
(£m)
0.1
3.2
9.6
55.5
42.3
110.7
7.2
GPF revenue grant funding has now been almost wholly allocated to activities and
as set out in 4.10 no further revenue funding can therefore be committed until there
is a clear resolution of the STAR West Anglia project.
8
Next steps
8.1
An update on the West Anglia/STAR scheme will be presented at the next LEP
meeting to include the revised cost estimate and proposals for the funding package.
Appendices:
None.