HEREFORDSHIRE Council has missed out on £millions that would have meant a massive upgrade of a key county road.

Feedback from the Department for Transport (DfT) this week suggests the submission to a £275 million national highways improvement scheme fell below match funding offers made by by other councils.

The council pitched for £5.8 million to upgrade the A44.

That upgrade will not now go-ahead with government money, and the council could have to wait at least another three years before making another application.

The failure of a bid that was signed off at cabinet level in February, may mean a new council having to re-draw related costings for countywide highway maintenance plans drawn up in expectation of that £5.8 million being secured.

In its feedback, the DfT  indicated that the council’s proposed match funding of 10% was significantly lower than the average 21% matched funding offered by councils celebrating successful bids.

The bid criteria stipulated that matched funding should be found outside of a council’s  annual highways capital maintenance budget or from other government grant allocations.

Herefordshire Council was unable to make more funding available from elsewhere in the council’s budget. 

Responding to the rejection, the council cited its success  in securing more than £6 million in DfT funding  for severe weather and potholes.

This extra funding, the council says, is in addition to £20 million contribution made by Balfour Beatty to the long term maintenance of the county’s roads and the annual highways maintenance budget.

The council sees these sums as an addition to its regular capital and revenue budgets for highways saying that, taken together, they represent  the largest single investment in the highway network.

Herefordshire Council’s bid was one of 140 received by the DfT totalling almost £1.4 billion from a £275m pot of available funding, and one of the 109 turned down.

The condition of the county’s roads is a key issue for the council.

Herefordshire’s highway network is extensive, being over  2,000 miles in length and, if built today, would cost in excess of £2.5 billion to deliver.

Depreciation across the network is currently assessed at £101m, this being the theoretical sum needed to return the condition of roads to “as new”.

In its DfT submission, the council identified the A44 as a major east to west route across the county and specified Kington, Pembridge, Leominster and Bromyard as communities that would directly benefit from fresh investment in the road.

The route was also said to be a “popular strategic alternative” from the M5 corridor at Worcester and central Wales at Llandrindod Wells and beyond to  Aberystwyth and the Welsh west coast.

 As such, the bid for £5.8 million focussed on a three year investment programme from 2015-2018 with £8.4 million spent over the first year.

In making a business case, the council sought to identify a local funding contribution from sources largely outside its own £20 million investment to meet the fund’s requirements.

In doing so, the council recognised that its existing commitment represented an investment of £225,000 from revenue budgets over the 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 financial years.

These sums are described as invested to support borrowing costs and in addition to the local funding contribution.

With the existing revenue investment over the period included as part of the local contribution, the council identified its contribution as at least £2.225 million, which was in excess of the 10% required.

This contribution to the total scheme costs could, on the council’s description, be met through the existing investment from revenue budgets over the three financial years to the March 2018 and:

- The re-investment of savings being realised by the highway service, set to met a £1.7 million target for 2014/15.

- Additional gains share through the public realm services contract with Balfour Beatty Living Places – an additional £1 million across the whole works programme anticipated by March 2018.

Town and parish council investment in capital works identified at a local level and the potential to generate £500,000 of additional investment in roads.

Sums generated through the town and parish scheme, in particular, were identified for use in providing the remainder of the council’s local contribution to the total scheme costs.

Basing its case on the current take up of the lengthsman scheme by 99 parish councils, and the experience of trailing the new lengthsman scheme, papers show the council anticipated enthusiasm for this initiative.

The same papers reveal, however, that if the second tier councils didn’t match that anticipation, the council would cover an identified  £250k shortfall in that 10 per cent contribution to total scheme costs through a reduction in the revenue budget available for the lengthsman scheme over 2016/17 and 2017/18.

It was through this contribution from the three funding mechanisms, that council saw itself as able to afford that further £2 million toward overall scheme costs.