Will long-awaited Nottinghamshire road upgrades finally happen?
Take a drive through north Nottinghamshire, and there's a good chance you'll find yourself stuck at Ollerton roundabout.As the point where several major routes meet, it often acts as a bottleneck for traffic from six different directions.Plans to upgrade both the roundabout itself and the surrounding roads have been in the works for years.Last summer Nottinghamshire County Council was supposedly "a matter of days" from getting the final confirmation - and crucially, the funding - to start the work.So confident was the then-Conservative administration that they even put signs up saying improvements were "coming soon".Then along came the general election.With the change of government, the project's future suddenly became unclear.But with the cash taps seemingly being turned back on this week, are spades finally about to go into the ground?
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced on Wednesday billions of pounds of investment in transport infrastructure in England.
"It's very difficult to get capital funding out of central government."So says the Conservative councillor for Muskham and Farnsfield, Bruce Laughton.The A614 runs through his council division, and he says he's been lobbying for improvements for more than 15 years."It is essential for the north-south traffic through Nottinghamshire, and therefore [improving it] will have a major effect on the financial viability and the growth of this particular area," he said.A big chunk of the cash for the project was originally due to come directly from the Department for Transport.After a year of political upheaval, however, it looked like the burden would be shifted to the East Midlands Combined County Authority.When the Conservatives were in charge in central government, they promised the regional mayor would have £1.5bn to spend on improving connectivity – money saved from the cancellation of HS2 beyond Birmingham.
Speaking before the budget in the autumn, though, the Labour mayor Claire Ward said she was unsure if the money would arrive.Fast forward to this week, and not only was it confirmed, but the figure was higher than before."When Labour came into office, there were a huge number of schemes the Tories had promised funding for, and the money simply wasn't there," she said."After a year, we've been engaging with government, and I'm really pleased we've been allocated £2billion."
When the announcement was made by Reeves on Wednesday, however, the focus for the East Midlands was instead on a new mass transit system connecting Nottingham and Derby.Indeed, the Treasury press release didn't even mention the A614 project. Speaking to the BBC the same day, Ward said she wanted things to move "as quickly as possible", but appeared to stop short of giving any guarantees."There's still some outstanding bits of detail that we need to talk to our partners at Nottinghamshire County Council about," she said."We were going to make a contribution, and part of this money will help us to be able to have that money set aside ready for that contribution."
Nonetheless, the new leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, Reform UK's Mick Barton, welcomed the news."It'll have a massive impact; it needed doing years and years ago," he said."It's only got worse regarding the flow of traffic and the volume of traffic, so it will benefit everybody, whether it be the economy, the residents, the work people."All the signs are the project will get the green light, and while everyone I've spoken to this week seems to be supportive of it, there is also a sense of frustration that it's taken so long.After all, the council's former leader previously warned the plans were "already four or five months" behind schedule - that was eight months ago.
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