Seventy-one local road schemes, provisionally or fully approved by the Government in the last five years, have run up more than £533M in cost overruns between them.
The average overrun was £7.5M, but they varied significantly from just £240,000 over five years for Staffordshire County Council’s Burntwood bypass to £28.49M for the Sheffield inner-relief road stages two and three. The hike was even larger for the Carlisle northern relief road, but this was re-procured through a private-finance initiative which included maintenance of 150km of roads.
It was one of six to have more than doubled in cost after it was first submitted to the Government, according to figures for every LTP road that had not been completed when the statistics were compiled. But nine of the 71 were completed to budget, while a further two were actually delivered at a final cost which was less than expected.
Forty-one of 80 Highways Agency schemes also were hit by cost overruns.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England's head of transport policy Paul Hamblin urged ministers to be as quick to act on rising costs as they had with the railways.
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