Value for money?

Further to our discovery that work on the Newbridge Park and Ride extension had started without valid planning consent we thought we would look a little further into the financial side of this proposal. We contacted the most helpful Department for Transport who told us:

“The Department is providing £10.958m of funding for a scheme costing a total of £26.898m.  That funding is provided as a contribution to the scheme as a whole and not for any specific elements of the scheme.

So far we have paid out £3.2m and have received a request for a further £2.4m. The current profile of payments suggests that by the end of this financial year March 2013 we will have received claims from BANES for some £9.2m of our funding.”

It would appear that this money has been paid out although the proper planning permission was not in place. One of the DfT’s criteria for funding projects is that they are ‘value for money’. We have submitted a freedom of information request as to how much B&NES Council has spent to date on the Newbridge Park & Ride extension, and will share their answer with you once we receive it. We do know that the purchase of the donkey field cost £90,000, which alone would mean each space in the new extension would cost £360.

Seemingly the 250 space extension is not ‘value for money’ when a pot of paint could be used to mark out the existing car park to enlarge that by 100 spaces!