At the last council meeting, Shropshire Council’s portfolio holder for transport, Dan Morris, refused to give an estimate of the cost of the four-mile North West Relief Road in Shrewsbury saying that would lead to contractors bidding up to that estimate. Just three days later, Shropshire Council published a tender for construction that revealed the cost as £110m, an eyewatering £38m a mile. No wonder that the council leadership didn’t want councillors to know or perhaps they didn’t know. They voted through £95 million of funding for the road before without realising it was wrong, though now that looks close to what is needed.
The £17 million is on top of the £27.9 million already spent, brings the cost to £42 million of government and Shropshire Council funds before the scheme is finalised. The current cost of the scheme is there £42m + £110m + £38m VAT. A whacking £190 million in all, £48 million a mile, £30,000 a metre.
At the same council meeting, councillors heard about how spending on the road has not been properly controlled and that officers had spent £300,000 without approval.
The approval at council was scandalous. The council needs just £181,500 to deliver the Full Business Case (FBC) which is needed to gain government approval for the road. Another £712,000 is needed for boreholes, archaeology and covering the £300,000 spent without approval. That’s around one million pounds. The rest of the £17m is to start construction of the road, by building access roads, diverting utilities, constructing badgers setts, and erecting bat boxes. None of this work should be done before the FBC is approved. Lib Dem Andrew Sherrington proposed an amendment that only funding for the FBC should be approved at the moment but that was lost with 32 votes for and 37 votes against.
The Tory strategy is clearly to get a contract for construction issued and the work started before the local elections in May 2025, making it difficult for the incoming administration to cancel the road as all opposition parties have pledged to do. However, with the Full Business Case not going to DfT for approval until the end of the year, the government won’t sign the road off until spring. Shropshire Council could be in purdah ahead of the elections by the time the FBC is approved meaning DfT will not be able to issue a decision. There is also every possibility of a change in national government before then and the sooner the better.
The Conservatives are engaged in a scorched earth policy, spending as much as they can on the road get a stick to beat the political parties opposed to the road once they lose control of the council in 2025. Look how much money you have wasted, they will say. It is the Conservatives wasting money.
The council, or rather us taxpayers, do not have this money. We heard at the council meeting that the government has committed to fully funding the road. It hasn’t. The DfT has only committed to fund the Outline Business Case cost of £80.1 million. That leaves £90 million short before any cost overruns and inflation.How odd that is only £5 million short of the £95 million the Conservatives asked for last September by mistake!
The Conservatives say they will borrow to fund any shortfall and this is okay as it is capital funding. It is not okay. If you have a mortgage on a house (capital), you pay it off through your income (revenue). There is not much money out there. Once the council has sold Shirehall, and that sale could be imminent, it will have almost no capital assets left to sell. The Shirehall money is committed to redevelopment of the shopping centres which it bought for £51 million wiping out its capital reserves on a whim and fancy. We will pay for the £30,000 per metre road through council tax, higher charges and closure of services.
After a damning Audit Committee report, the council has promised to bring spending on the NWRR under control with proper invoicing, some spending had not met the council’s audit rules, and more effective financial management. That’s important as councillors must have tight control over officers. But time and time again, I get the impression that officers are leading a docile Conservative leadership which is out of its depth.
The council leadership must also bring its ambitions under control and stop spending money we don’t have. It was the Conservaties that got us into a financial mess. They are in a hole and they should stop digging. And they should stop digging holes for the NWRR.
This article has been updated to add VAT, assuming VAT on the total cost.
Spending all this money while staff got told no redundancy back in Jan now to be faced with voluntary redundancy followed by compulsory! Services that are left will be running on the bear bones and won’t cope.
This is the link to the tender. https://www.delta-esourcing.com/delta/respondToList.html?accessCode=ZDS4QEH95A
Come on councillors this is beyond ridiculous- to say its capital is insulting to the electorate someone- the council tax payer has to pay the loan back and as the council is already in difficulty with its fiances it can only mean more cuts or higher tax.
Please can we have a well publicised petition against this profligate waste so the electorate can tell the council we do not want this money spent on a vanity project
Andy and all Lib dems please start a petition against this urgently
There have been several petitions. More than 2,000 people signed one if I recall correctly. The council said that’s only 2,000 objecting so most people are in favour! The latest petition has gone viral nationally and has more than 100K signatures
https://www.change.org/p/save-the-darwin-oak
What a complete waste of rates. Meanwhile their useless performance has led them to financial ruin. Yet they still continue with useless vanity projects. They deserve to be out of position next time around. Good riddance.
If I read this correctly (and assuming the situation is as reported):
a) Shropshire Council have voted to spend £17m on works that are clearly part of the construction of the MWRR, NOT part of the FBC preparation, and have done so without any certainty that the full cost of the work with the supported by DfT. This places them at serious risk. Also, in the event of DfT not supporting the full build, their memorial will be some very expensive bat boxes etc….
b) they have formally issued a tender for construction (with an expected spend of c. £110m) and intend to sign this before an FBC has been approved and hence DfT funding can be assured. Under these conditions, would you, as a a contractor bother to bid, let alone sign?
This seems to show recklessness to the point of negligence by Members, in terms of the possible financial risk they are creating to SC finances.
Am I right is assuming that in the event of formal prosecution for financial mismanagment, all Members of the Council are equally liable, regardless of whether they voted for or against the activity concerned? That would certainly be the case for the Board of a limted company.
Councillors are not like members of limited company, neither are MPs. It is reckless. It is negligent but it can only be resolved though the ballot box. Except for JR and that is underway.
I am appalled when Shropshire services are being drastically cut affecting the young, especially young with special needs, people in desperate need of food, energy etc to live a reasonable life, probably libraries being cut, swimming pools being closed, any youth centres left probably being closed in fact the infastructure which affects everyone, being decimated by the government and not being helped by local councils who have had budgets drastically cut.
How is the care of health, welfare and well being of the people of Shropshire being met by the council?