Millions in council investment pushed back a year

Millions of pounds of investment in the current year’s budget for projects in Southampton is being pushed back to the next financial year.

School and art gallery roof works, street lighting improvements and a leisure centre refurbishment are some of the schemes facing setbacks.

A report to the city council’s cabinet said there was a £6.24m slippage across capital programmes due to take place in 2024/25.

Labour deputy leader Simon Letts said he would probably conduct a "little review of the slippage position".

The revised programme for the current year involves £171.82m of investment, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Last month, opposition councillors questioned the Labour council leadership over the amount of slippage in the capital programme.

Conservative group deputy leader Jeremy Moulton said: “We often do just talk about ‘it’s just slippage’ but we should be targeting delivering as much of the capital programme in year as possible.”

Liberal Democrats councillor Sam Chapman said some projects had slipped for multiple years.

Mr Letts, who is cabinet member for finance, said: “I’m probably going to have a little review of the slippage position and see if there are any common themes that we can draw out from that review.”