Meeting over Rugby Western Relief Road project budget

A public meeting is to be held next week to examine the Rugby Western Relief Road project.

Warwickshire County Council's Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee will meet at Rugby Town Hall on Tuesday.

Members will discuss the issues around the project which exceeded its budget by millions of pounds.

The Rugby Western Relief Road was built to cut traffic congestion in and around Rugby. It opened on 10 September 2010.

'Properly scrutinise'

The estimated cost of the Rugby Western Relief Road was about £59.7m, compared to an original planned spend of about £36.57m, the county council said.

A spokesman said the new road had cut journey times and helped to mitigate environmental damage by reducing noise and air pollution within the town centre.

He said it had also created better conditions for pedestrians, cyclists and other road users and helped to reduce the number of accidents.

The road is used by an average of 12,000 vehicles each day.

The project was constructed by Carillion and funded by the Department for Transport, Warwickshire County Council and developers.

The Scrutiny Committee will examine the processes that led to delays in the scheme and it being delivered over budget, and will scrutinise areas where the county council could have worked differently.

Councillor John Whitehouse, committee chairman, said: "We are now in a position to be able to properly scrutinise the Western Relief Road project and understand in detail why it suffered delays during its construction and exceeded its budget by millions of pounds.

"We need to establish whether the project has provided good value for taxpayers' money and identify any lessons to be learned by the county council in the management of such major projects in future."