Financial mismanagement rather than a requirement to protect wildlife caused an £11.7m overspend on a major road building scheme, opposition councillors claim.
Green Party councillors on North Yorkshire Council have spoken out after Conservative MP Julian Smith blamed environmental mitigations for the spiralling costs of the Kex Gill bypass scheme.
Mr Smith praised the project to realign a landslip-prone section of the A59, between Skipton and Harrogate, at a recent meeting of Skipton and Ripon councillors.
When reminded of the overspend, he said he had been told by contractors that 20 to 25 per cent of the cost of the work was down to environmental mitigations.
He added:
“Now obviously it’s the Nidderdale National Park. We have to make sure that it is very well cared for.
“But when I saw rocks for lizards to bathe on and demands that no works could take place on the water courses for nine months a year, it was clear to me why some of these costs has inflated.
“I think as a country we do need to look at how we better balance the environment with some of these schemes because that scheme for transport is vital.”
Councillor Andy Brown, Green Party councillor for the Aire Valley, took exception to the MP blaming work to protect the environment for the overspend.
He said:
“Great idea that we do Kex Gill but the £11.7m overspend was a shattering blow to North Yorkshire Council’s finances – and we weren’t informed as a council until after the event that it was developing.”
Speaking to the MP, he added:
“I’d ask you to correct your facts on that – no part of the overspend was due to environmental concerns – it was due to a miscalculation of the nature of the ground and incompetence in managing it.”
After the meeting, Councillor David Noland, Green Party member Embsay and Eastby, said:
“I was shocked to hear an MP who should know better, coming up with a wildly inaccurate accusation that the overspend on Kex Gill was due to environmental protections, when it was in fact entirely the product of incompetence and mismanagement.”
North Yorkshire Council agreed in May to provide an extra £11.7m towards the realignment project, taking the cost up to £82.5m.
The project was originally expected to cost £68.8m, with an extra £2m previously approved by councillors.
The scheme includes a bypass, near Blubberhouses, which will replace a section of the A59 which has suffered 15 closures since 2000 due to landslips.
North Yorkshire Council declined to comment.
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