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.