Transport campaigners attack 'risky' council road schemes

15 Sep 11
Councils are 'gambling' taxpayers' money on risky, expensive and outmoded road schemes, transport campaigners said today.

By Vivienne Russell | 15 September 2011

Councils are ‘gambling’ taxpayers’ money on risky, expensive and outmoded road schemes, transport campaigners said today.

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The Campaign for Better Transport collected data from the 45 major transport schemes currently being considered for a share of £630m of government funding. Local authorities submitted full and final bids to the Department for Transport on September 9 and the decisions are expected in December.

The figures show that the bidding authorities have pledged more than £600m to fund the schemes, up from around £400m in the budgets they set out in January. Councils have increased their contributions to the schemes to improve their chances of receiving Whitehall approval, the CBT claimed.

But many of the bids were over-reliant on large amounts of borrowing on the ‘basis of unreliable forecasts for new sources of income’, according to the campaigners.

Sian Berry, CBT’s sustainable transport campaigner, said many of the schemes councils were hoping to get approved had been superseded by better and cheaper alternatives.

She said: ‘Instead of considering other options, councils are gambling more and more council taxpayers’ money by ramping up their borrowing bases on flimsy assumptions and future contributions from developers.

‘With the uncertain state of the economy, it’s as if these councils are proposing to take out a second mortgage with no idea if they can afford the extra repayments.’

Among the authorities singled out for criticism were Devon County Council and Torbay Council, which are proposing to borrow £31.3m to fund the Kingkerswell bypass, trebling their original expenditure and bringing the total cost of the road to almost £20,000 per metre.

But a spokesman for Devon County Council said: ‘We have taken on a larger share of the costs in response to a request by the government, and in fact the taxpayer's contribution has reduced by £32m. Our scheme now costs £12m less than the original proposals, because we have worked hard to reduce costs whilst still keeping the scheme's benefits intact.’

He added that the bypass would improve road safety, saving £59m over its lifetime.

The CBT also highlighted the case of the Lincoln East bypass. Lincolnshire County Council has increased its contribution to the project to £45.9m, more than three and half times what it originally envisaged.

Paul Coathup, assistant director of highways and transportation at Lincolnshire, said it was possible that the CBT hadn’t understood the wider context of the bypass and where the council hoped the funding would come from.

‘The total expected capital cost for the bypass is £95.9m. We are making a contribution of £13.6m and acting as guarantor for the £32.3m third party element to put our bid to the DfT for a £50m contribution in the strongest possible position,’ he said.

‘It is anticipated that the development element will be recouped over the next 15 years from, for instance, housing developers – taxpayers won’t be out of pocket.’

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