Community Infrastructure Fund - Appraisal Note
Introduction
This note sets out the appraisal procedures for schemes bidding for funding from the Community Infrastructure Fund (CIF). It briefly summarises the requirements and provides guidance on completing appraisal worksheets. It should be read in conjunction with other DfT transport appraisal guidance 1 ; ODPM's "3Rs guidance" 2 ; and the accompanying revised "Integration" worksheet for the CIF.
Rationale for CIF and appraisal requirements
CIF aims to support the transport infrastructure costs required to enable faster housing development in the four growth areas, as announced in ODPM's Sustainable Communities Plan 3 . Accordingly, appraisals should emphasise the housing delivered by the transport schemes proposed.
To accommodate this objective, promoters should complete appraisals in line with the usual DfT New Approach To Appraisal (NATA) requirements. However, special care should be given to treatment of Transport Economic Efficiency analysis and Integration objectives. This note provides supplementary guidance on these elements.
Transport Economic Efficiency
Benefits to new households from a transport scheme will accrue as time savings. These time savings may eventually be reflected in house prices and development viability. So, as time savings accrue to journeys taking place within a locality, people may be willing to pay more to locate there and, thus, marginal housing developments become viable.
Accordingly, Transport Economic Efficiency (TEE) analysis will count these benefits if appropriate land use assumptions are made. To ensure this, promoters are advised to complete TEE table analysis assuming that additional housing development is included in both the "do nothing" and "do something" scenarios, even though the transport scheme may be predicated on the additional households only materialising once the scheme is in place.
Integration
In order to appraise transport schemes as part of the CIF, particular attention must be paid to housing objectives within the NATA appraisal framework. The housing development delivered as a consequence of the scheme needs to be assessed by scheme promoters and presented as part of the "Integration" objective.
At present, within the NATA framework, this objective merely considers the compatibility of a transport scheme with land use policy. This would simply state whether a scheme is beneficial, neutral or adverse. Given CIF's focus on housing delivery, special emphasis and analysis should be provided on this objective.
Promoters are required to complete the new Integration Worksheet attached. This worksheet should be used to outline the additional housing delivered in the "do something" as opposed to "do nothing" scenario. That is, it should exclude "deadweight" as defined by the 3Rs guidance - those outputs that would have arisen in the absence of the scheme / intervention.
In a simple example, if 100 houses would be delivered without the CIF transport scheme but 200 houses would be delivered with the transport scheme, the additional 100 houses should be counted including the characteristics of this development. This is based on the assumption that the proposed CIF funded transport scheme removes a constraint on development imposed by the transport system that would otherwise be in place.
The Integration Worksheet requests information on a number of characteristics of the development. These include the number of dwellings delivered; the type of dwellings delivered; car parking provision; development's nature; and information on the type of land being developed. This information will be used in combination with the other analyses that form the rest of the NATA appraisal to come to a view on which schemes offer the best value for money. The information will allow DfT and ODPM to:
- consider the different housing benefits delivered by schemes and how to prioritise these;
- come to a view on trading off transport and housing benefits; and
- decide how far the development and the transport scheme meet DfT and ODPM objectives and whether to divert public money towards ensuring the development and scheme proceeds.
Finally, the Integration Worksheet requires information on other public sector subsidies provided and evidence to demonstrate the link between the transport scheme and development. Information on other subsidies is important so that DfT and ODPM can take a broad view on the total resources being employed to ensure the transport scheme and development proceeds. This will inform decisions on scheme approval.
Evidence on how the scheme increases accessibility, and therefore incentivises development, is important to demonstrate the link between the transport scheme and the development.
ODPM / DfT
November 2004
2 http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_about/documents/page/odpm_about_029332.hcsp
3 http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_control/documents/contentservertemplate/odpm_index.hcst?n=3657&l=1
