Plans for a traffic mitigation scheme at Clopton Bridge in Stratford have been paused by Warwickshire County Council (WCC).
WCC has made promising progress over the last nine months with developers Taylor Wimpey and Spitfire Homes to progress the design and potential delivery of the Clopton Bridge Traffic Mitigation Scheme.
Unfortunately, in the last month, the developers shared their contractors’ latest cost estimates for delivery of the works which far exceed the funding available to deliver the scheme.
The scheme, as it is currently designed, is estimated to cost between £3m and £3.5m. This far exceeds the estimated £1.9m of available funding. The increase in costs have been driven by over £500k of unexpected utility diversions that would be required as well as current high rates of construction and materials inflation.
There are a number of schemes currently waiting to be delivered in and around the Stratford area and the WCC Network Management Team have been carefully coordinating access to the road network so that congestion from these works is minimised.
It was hoped to have the Clopton Scheme on site in the winter of 2022/23 but it is clear that this will now not be possible. Given the programme of other works, and the availability of road space, the next opportunity to deliver a Scheme at Clopton is likely to be in 2024.
These factors, combined with the need to redesign the scheme so that it is deliverable within the available funding, means that WCC will now need to take back responsibility for the scheme and pause its delivery.
The Council, as the Highway Authority, recognises that this will likely mean that the additional traffic from a fully built out Taylor Wimpey/Spitfire site will need to be tolerated until such time as a suitable mitigation scheme can be designed and delivered.
However, It is hoped that the reductions in peak time traffic flow that have been seen since the pandemic will enable the additional traffic from the site to be accommodated in the short term.
Cllr Wallace Redford, Warwickshire County Council Portfolio Holder for Transport and Highways said: “Although the pause on delivery to the Clopton Bridge Traffic Mitigation Scheme is disappointing, this will give officers of the Authority the opportunity to take on board local concerns about the proposals and to develop a scheme that is both affordable, delivers sufficient mitigation as required by the planning inspectorate and is more acceptable to local residents. This is a pragmatic decision as we continue to ensure that our residents are supported through excellent transport infrastructure.“
For more information about how Transport and Highways in Warwickshire, visit: https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/roads-transport