Comment: Costs set to sink key road link

Dec 19 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

YET more gloomy news today, and this time it affects many of those whose daily commute includes a crawl into Liverpool along the relentlessly busy Dunnings Bridge Road.

For years, there has been a plan to relieve this clogged artery of the city by building a road from the Port of Liverpool to Switch Island. And the amount of Port of Liverpool traffic is set to increase once a post-Panamax facility is built there.

But now the prospect of a new road ever happening appears to be accelerating over the horizon, as it emerges that the highway could cost up to five times the original estimate of £45m.

The new road that would be built through the Rimrose Valley – between Waterloo and Litherland – would have significantly eased traffic flow along Dunnings Bridge Road, and would have been welcomed by anyone who uses it. The Highways Agency said the costs had risen from £45m to between £131m to £200m, because of changes in the methodology of estimating costs.

It is almost mind-boggling to contemplate what changes in methodology could push the costs up so vastly. And, no doubt, some people will surely now wonder if it is not so much a change in methodology, as a general miscalculation of the original figures.

However, the fact now must be faced that this road scheme could cost an enormous amount of cash, and simply not be viable in the long run.

The Highways Agency is looking for commitment from local authorities before it proceeds further with this plan; whether it will receive that backing remains to be seen.

And, with the work on the new link not due to start until 2015, there must be a danger costs could rise again.

Realistically, it may be better to pull the plug on this scheme now.