Resignation calls after Rugby Relief Road overspend inquiry

A damning inquiry has found a massive £60m of taxpayers’ money was poured into the disastrous building of a four-mile road in Warwickshire.



Rugby’s Western Relief Road bust its original budget by a staggering £24m, it has been revealed.

The overspend could have paid the salaries of nearly half the 1800 Warwickshire County Council workers whose jobs now face the axe from unprecedented £60m budget cuts.

Council chiefs are facing resignation calls over the shambolic project.

The original estimated costs of £36m in July 2007 when contracts were awarded to Carillion JM Ltd escalated to £60m amid hold-ups, until the road finally fully opened last September.

The bill could continue to rise with compensation claims still in the pipeline.

The wasted millions could also have saved council services in communities axed in February’s budget, and salvaged 12 times over all 16 county libraries under threat of closure.

A newly published independent report by Contractauditline Ltd concludes there were failings in the way the contract was managed and budgeted.

Labour group spokesman, councillor Richard Chattaway, called for resignations at the Conservative-controlled council.

He said: "Clearly somebody has to accept responsibility for this soon, on an individual basis."

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