This proposal is to replace the council’s operational fleet of 34 vehicles with 30 new vehicles on an invest-to-save basis.

The existing fleet as a whole is reaching a significant age and vehicles are failing and beyond repair. This has adversely affected service delivery where vehicles are unreliable and have broken down. This is increasing pressure on maintenance budgets and has resulted in the need to use short-term leases to cover vehicle downtime and to ensure service delivery.

This proposal will address these risks in addition to reducing future running costs.

This invest to save proposal seeks to utilise the annual revenue savings generated by this proposal to fund the capital repayments.

That:

Subject to approval in the 2019/20 capital programme that the procurement and use of up to 30 new vehicles at a cost of no more than £737,582 be approved.

1.         Not to replace the corporate fleet. This is not recommended as this will increase risk to service delivery and will likely result in increased annual revenue costs.

2.         Leasing vehicles instead of purchasing. This is not recommended as leasing is more expensive than purchasing vehicles and maintaining them through the existing public realm contract.