Council grilled over millions spent on link road

Questions have been asked about how millions of pounds spent on a controversial road plan will be repaid if it is not built.

Norfolk County Council has withdrawn its planning application for the Norwich Western Link (NWL), but could have to repay the £33m the government provided for the scheme.

With the road unlikely to go ahead, opposition parties asked what plans the Conservative-run authority had in place to cover money already spent.

Tory leader Kay Mason Billig said costs for the project had "always" been included in the council's budget.

Last week, the council dropped its planning application to the government for the 3.9-mile (6.2km) road connecting the Northern Distributor Road (NDR) around Norwich to the A47 west of the city.

That was because rules protecting rare bats meant a licence was unlikely to be granted.

However, millions of pounds had already been spent on things including buying land and staff and consultants' costs.

Mason Billig told a council meeting the authority was still in talks with government about whether the project had a future.

"I can't give you an exact answer, because until the DfT [Department for Transport] come forward with the answers to our questions, we're not going to know which direction we need to head in," she said.

She was responding to a question from Labour councillor Steve Morphew, who had pointed out the council's own "risk register" listed the costs of the road as a "red risk".

"It is quite extraordinary the Conservative administration has painted Norfolk into this damaging corner despite multiple warnings," he said.

The Greens' Jamie Osborn also asked for details of a contingency plan and said the council could face "financial catastrophe" if it needed to repay millions of pounds.

After the meeting, he said he wanted to see "honesty from the Conservatives and clarity on where they expect the money to come from".

Despite growing doubts over the future of the road, the council insisted it still hoped to build the NWL.

The Conservative councillor responsible for transport, Graham Plant, said: "We haven't dropped it; we haven't stopped it."

The Department for Transport has said it would "continue to work with Norfolk County Council on measures to improve congestion [problems]".

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