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Weymouth Relief Road 'ahead of schedule and £2m under budget' (From Dorset Echo)
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Weymouth Relief Road 'ahead of schedule and £2m under budget'
8:40am Saturday 6th February 2010
WORK is progressing on the congestion-busting Weymouth Relief Road so smoothly that it could finish ahead of schedule and come in under budget, it is claimed.
South Dorset MP Jim Knight made the disclosure on the possible cash saving after discussing the project with officials.
Mr Knight says because work on the £87million project is forging ahead without any real hitch there could be some money left over in the pot – almost as much as £2million.
The road is due to officially open in spring 2011.
Council chiefs admit that work has been boosted by spells of good weather. If this continues the scheme could be finished ahead of schedule in about a year’s time.
The surface of the road will be laid this summer and it should be possible to drive the whole carriageway by late autumn – although there are other works to complete after that including landscaping, footpaths and the park and ride facility at Lodmoor.
Mr Knight said: “Contractors have been able to progress quickly, with no major disruption, and the reasonably good weather has allowed them to make a lot of progress. It is my understanding there could be an underspend on the project of as much as £2million.
“This is good news and I’m hoping that if this is the case the money can be kept in the constituency and used on other projects.”
The Department for Transport suggested it was too early to say whether there would be an underspend on the relief road.
A spokesman added: “If any Government-funded road scheme is completed under budget, the underspend would be returned to the Government.”
Ice and snow after Christmas delayed some aspects of the project – including the opening of the temporary road on the Ridgeway – prompting managers to plough on with other less ‘temperature sensitive’ works such as drainage.
Engineers say bridges along the route and the earthworks are 80 per cent complete. Littlemoor Bridge should be open to traffic in the next six weeks.
County council head of highways Andy Ackerman said there was no underspend on the project ‘at this stage'. He insisted the road was ‘on time and on budget'.
He added: “We’ve got a year to go and a lot can happen on a construction site in that time. It may be that we get a nasty bit of weather.”
Project manager for contractors Skanska Willie McCormick said the message he was getting from the community was that most people are behind the new road and are ‘very enthusiastic'.
“We have a good relationship with locals. There’s been very few complaints for a job this size,” he said.
* Dorset County Council has rejected claims that there will be money left to spend from the Weymouth Transport Package for the 2012 Olympics.
Tory prospective parliamentary candidate Richard Drax claimed the investment would have an underspend of around £2 million, and called for the savings to be kept locally.
But a county council spokesman said all the authority had done was to rectify the amount of money in its business case for the package.
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Your Say YourEcho
popup, portland says...
9:48am Sat 6 Feb 10
Get a grip, Dorset says...
10:01am Sat 6 Feb 10
Duckorange, Wyke Regis says...
10:17am Sat 6 Feb 10
popup wrote:I thought a cycle track is part of the plan.
Perhaps if there is any money left it could be used to improve the rest of the road up to the A35 Tesco roundabout, maybe even a cycle track.
How about thirty quid each for everybody in Weymouth and Portland?
Get a grip, Dorset says...
10:46am Sat 6 Feb 10
portlandresident, Portland says...
11:16am Sat 6 Feb 10
lellski, lellski says...
11:25am Sat 6 Feb 10
dorwey, weymouth says...
12:18pm Sat 6 Feb 10
lellski wrote:Oh no, the end of the world, being stuck behind a lorry, I assume you have a car that cuts out and the wheels adhere to the road so you are stuck and can't move!
Am i right to believe that the bypass is single carrageway if so it will be a total waste of money as there will be no overtaking so when stuck behind a lorry you stay stuck behind a lorry
Or do you mean you actually have to stick to the speed limit?
siratb, Preston says...
1:41pm Sat 6 Feb 10
ike the rest of the roads in Dorset.
.
I reckon the A31 should be an extension of the M27 and go all the way to the M5 myself.....
popup, portland says...
1:53pm Sat 6 Feb 10
lellski wrote:Oh dear nightmare of all nightmares stuck behind a lorry that could be only doing 40mph when you could be doing 60mph the end of the world as we know it, It could make at least a couple of minutes difference.
Am i right to believe that the bypass is single carrageway if so it will be a total waste of money as there will be no overtaking so when stuck behind a lorry you stay stuck behind a lorry
Siratb Says I reckon the A31 should be an extension of the M27 and go all the way to the M5 myself.....Me too but we stand more chance of seeing the Pope in a brothel.
Willow21, says...
2:28pm Sat 6 Feb 10
Both apparantly unaware of the way in which public money is allocated;
and then believing that they can cream off any underpends.
Quite worrying really.
More to come, I guess.
dorchbloke, Dorchester says...
4:35pm Sat 6 Feb 10
biggestoaf, Weymouth says...
6:23pm Sat 6 Feb 10
After not years, but decades of getting nowhere on a relief road, we finally get an MP who manages to deliver and you accuse him of pre-election fever? Why shouldn't he take credit for it? When elected he promised he would fight to get the road built - and he has.
Willow21, says...
7:28pm Sat 6 Feb 10
My comment related to both Knight and Drax attempting to raise hopes abiout 'surplus' money that doesn't actualle exist.
weypaul, weymouth says...
11:51pm Sat 6 Feb 10
a1walpole, weymouth says...
8:39am Sun 7 Feb 10
dun hoping, weymouth says...
6:23pm Sun 7 Feb 10
Weston7, Portland says...
4:45pm Mon 8 Feb 10
"The scheme is on time and on budget". There will be no £2m left to spend in this area.
Dorset Guy, Bridport says...
5:42pm Mon 8 Feb 10
The relief road makes progress
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terra firma, wimborne says...
9:12am Sat 6 Feb 10