THE cost of extending Liverpool’s Edge Lane dual carriageway has risen by £9.5m, to £25.6m, after regeneration officials “underestimated” the price of property and demolition.

It comes as the Daily Post can reveal that the long- awaited Edge Lane West scheme faces yet more delays after campaigners launched a new legal challenge to a compulsory purchase order (CPO).

Activist Elizabeth Pascoe, who opposed the scheme to demolish Victorian homes to widen Edge Lane West, said she expected her legal challenge to be heard around Easter, 2009.

Last night, Labour opposition leader Cllr Joe Anderson said: “There needs to be some serious questions asked about the way this scheme has been handled.” Alongside the widening of Edge Lane West to improve traffic flow from the city centre to the M62, it is envisaged that 280 new houses, a new medical centre and shops will also be built.

Council officials have admitted in a transport capital programme document that “acquisitions and associated demolition costs were originally underestimated”, leading to a 60% rise in costs to widening the road.

Of the £25.6m that will be spent on the scheme, the Department for Transport (DfT) is to pay £22.1m, with £2.48m due to come from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and the city council spending another £1m.

The ERDF is to virtually double its contribution, with the DfT being asked to contribute an additional £6.3m. The same document reveals the funding is “aspirational at present and will be confirmed once successful bids for external funding have been made.

“Expenditure will not be committed against external funding until offer letters have been received.”

Around 370 homes on Edge Lane and surrounding streets will need to be demolished.

Almost 90% of the properties are either already in public ownership or are in the process of acquisition.