£3M REQUIRED TO COMPLETE ROAD, SAY SEA CHANGE
But County Council Still ‘Looking’ for Funding
Hugh Sullivan
At a meeting of the full East Sussex County Council on 6 February, a member of the public, Bernard Brown, raised questions concerning the stalled Queensway Gateway road. He put it to council leader Keith Glazier that the project was seven years behind schedule, that the £10m budget was fully spent, and that “he doesn’t know when the road will open, what the final costs will be, or where the money is coming from to pay for it”.
Cllr Glazier declared in response that “We are looking at areas of additional funding” while “trying to get the absolute costs of the final piece of work… It’s my hope and wish that this happens sooner rather than later.”
What Cllr Glazier did not spell out was that, according to his own senior council officer Richard Dawson, reporting on the project last month to the Accountability Board of SELEP (South East Local Enterprise Partnership), which provided the £10m already spent, a Scheme Surety Bond is required to cover the remaining projected costs before any further work is undertaken. Mr Dawson told the SELEP Board that “as of mid-December” the council was “awaiting final costs” from Sea Change Sussex, the publicly funded delivery partner, for this purpose.
But this appears to have been an obfuscation. Mr Dawson did not update the SELEP Board, nor did Cllr Glazier inform the council meeting, that the council was informed in December by Sea Change Sussex, that a budget of £3 million was needed for this purpose.
A spokesperson for Sea Change said last week: “We’ve completed the Queensway Gateway road; however, East Sussex County Council requires this to remain closed until improvements to the existing Whitworth Road and safety enhancements at the junction with the A21 are completed. These additional works required were not included within our agreement with the county council.
The spokesperson went on to claim that “We [Sea Change] have used our own resources to date to design the connection to the A21, which meets highways standards and has passed a road safety audit…If we’re instructed shortly to undertake the remaining works, they can be completed in a relatively short period of time.”
As to Cllr Glazier’s desire to “get the absolute costs”, it was said on behalf of Sea Change that these “can only be calculated based on confirmed design details, funding availability and start date, which are in the hands of the county council…A timely confirmation by the council of funding availability and start date for the final works will result in lower costs”.
So where is the money to come from? Certainly not from SELEP, which had been threatening over the past year and a half to claw back the £10m already spent on the grounds that the East Sussex council had lost control of the project and its funding. But it’s been known for nearly a year that SELEP is to be wound up at the end of March. Public accountability for the project will then apparently be transferred to DHLUC (the Department of Housing, Levelling Up and Communities). Perhaps Cllr Glazier is “wishing and hoping” that this department, unburdened with the previous history of devious funding manoeuvres between the council, Sea Change and SELEP, will be persuaded to step in.
The only alternative, it seems, is for the council to bite the bullet and find another £3 million from its reserves.
In the meantime the traffic continues to queue around the Ridge and the A21, and the supposed benefits of the road for the development of adjacent commercial sites along Queensway remain unrealised.
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