THE business case for a shared bike scheme in the city is not yet “sufficiently robust or fit for purpose in its current form”, according to an independent assessor.

Last week Brighton and Hove City Council announced it had secured start-up funding for the shared bike scheme, which would see 430 bikes and 50 docking stations across the city.

It is hoped the plan, which would become operational by 2016/17, would eliminate around 300,000 car journeys a year, reduce congestion, improve air quality and speed up journey times.

But independent reviewer Parsons Brinckerhoff, a multinational engineering and design company, suggested the council may have exaggerated the benefits of the scheme.

The Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has conditionally approved £1.16 million in funding – but said the scheme must prove its viable long-term future before money is fully approved.

Total costs would be £1.4 million with £290,000 raised locally and £60,000 coming from the council.

A condition of the funding would be that the authority must ensure the scheme is subsidised in the event that it does not make an operating profit.

Meanwhile an assessment of the council’s funding bid to the LEP described estimates of a benefit to cost ratio (BCR) of 4.99 to 1 as “very high”.

Parsons Brinckerhoff said it would be “inadvisable to rely on a high or very high BCR in considering this application” and suggested under 1.5, closer to the London ‘Boris bikes’ scheme, which is considered “poor.”

The LEP only funds schemes which are high value for money, unless the authority can demonstrate a “compelling need for the scheme to be funded”.

The council disputed the assessment, saying there was too much emphasis on the London scheme.

Other identified risks were that planning consents for the docking stations had not been secured, construction and costs could exceed the estimates, and sponsorship is not yet secured.

The Parsons Brinckerhoff reviewer’s recommendations concluded: “Environmental benefits are not substantiated and the business case is not considered to be sufficiently robust or fit for purpose in its current forum.

“The benefits claimed for economic growth, socio-distributional impact and contribution to the Strategic Economic Plan included in the business case are acceptable.

“It cannot be readily judged from the business case what the BCR should be without the application of more robust assumptions.

“In the circumstances a conservative conclusion at present would be that the BCR will be low or poor, in keeping with the London Bike Hire scheme.

“This application should be considered on that basis but – in the event that the project is not funded in 2015-16 – the business case should be resubmitted in a more robust form as a future application.”

Iain Reeve, transport advisor at the LEP, who oversaw the conditional approval, said: “Is the scheme going to be viable in the long term? We need reassurances that it won’t fail, because we don’t want to give public money away if it isn’t profitable “The scheme has to cover running costs and that’s something we haven’t seen yet.”

Nigel Lambe, founder of Velo Cafe, said the scheme had “universal support” from the business community.

He said: “I’ve been speaking to a lot of people around town over the last year. We had a meeting with 25 people from large employers to small employers, who were universally supportive of the scheme and happy to get involved.”

Lead councillor for transport at Brighton and Hove City Council, Ian Davey, added: “The idea has the support of the local business community who recognise the economic benefits it could bring and our partners in health who recognise the health benefits of more active travel. We will now work with the LEP to start the procurement process to find the right partners to run a successful system for Brighton and Hove.”