Subscribe

Most Read

So Counties

Council ‘could go bust’ if bypass plans blocked

Shares

 

Cheshire East Council might go bust if the government does not give the go-ahead for a new bypass in Middlewich, according to the chair of its highways committee.

Cllr Mark Goldsmith said the authority would not be able to repay the £26m it had already invested in the scheme.

“Whereas we were looking to pay that amount off over 25 years, we would have to pay it off in one year, and that could well – would, bankrupt the council,” he said.

“We don’t have £26m of reserves to pay for that, as we all know well,” he added.

“The government may allow us to capitalise that, as they did with the investment in HS2, but they are unlikely to refund us that money. The whole process is extremely risky, as it were.”

He said that as discussions with central government had spanned more than a decade – and a public inquiry had recommended the scheme go ahead – the authority ought to now be aware what the hurdle was to getting the necessary approval and funding from the government.

“It should be automatically awarded, and we should not be waiting for the minister to make a decision on that,” he said.

“The implications are very big. We are lobbying the government hard to inform them, let them know that.”

The council is hoping to hear from the Department of Transport later in February that it will receive grant funding totalling more than £46m towards the cost of the long-awaited scheme.

It comes after it was put on hold in April last year by the previous government, which asked Cheshire East to look again at the costs, describing the business case as “poor”.

 

‘No confidence whatsoever’

 

Councillors recently discussed a report containing several recommendations that would allow work on the scheme to start on site as quickly as possible, if government approval is given.

Cllr Liz Wardlaw said the council had got burned with the cancellation of the second phase of HS2.

She asked: “Can I be confident that we are doing the maximum amount of work in order to prepare for this project with the maximum confidence that our money won’t be lost?”

The authority’s director of transport and infrastructure, Tom Moody said: “As officers, we have done all we can in improving the original business case.”

Cllr Goldsmith added: “While we’re confident in our business proposal, and the pitch we’ve made to government, the whole process of funding these sort of major projects, leaves me with no confidence whatsoever.

“We backed HS2 because parliament promised to make it happen, and they didn’t – and if we can’t trust their word, then who can we within central government?”

 

 

 

Subscribe here

Archives

February 2025
M T W T F S S
« Jan    
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
2425262728  

Subscribe here

Top