Cheshire East is set to give the go ahead for two funding bids for the Nantwich Road enhancement schemes linked to the Crewe hub, writes Belinda Ryan.
The government launched the second round of bidding for the Levelling Up Fund in March.
Each local authority is categorised as a priority area, with priority one areas deemed to be in most need of levelling up and priority three areas the least.
Cheshire East is classed as priority three.
The council is expected to put in a bid of under £20m towards the funding of the western section of the Nantwich Road enhancements.
A report states: “This meets the key criteria of the fund, and is strongly linked to the Towns Fund and Future High Street Fund. Consequently, the scheme would be a strong candidate for a constituency bid.
“The Crewe and Nantwich MP has indicated his backing and support for the Nantwich Road enhancements.”
As a local transport authority (LTA), Cheshire East can also submit an additional LTA bid.
This is in addition to the constituency, or MP, bid.
Referring to the eastern section of the Nantwich Road enhancements, the report adds: “This scheme has a strong transport business case and is a key element in supporting the wider HS2 and Crewe hub programme and consequently, would be a strong candidate for an LTA bid.”
The bids have to be submitted by July 6.
If they are successful, a local financial contribution of at least 10% of the estimated scheme costs will be required for each bid.
The report states: “Sufficient funding is allocated in the council’s medium term financial strategy for the Crewe Hub to meet all of the local match funding requirement for the schemes should they be successful.”
The western enhancement scheme is estimated to cost approximately £19m, the eastern deck enhancement scheme, approximately £10m.
The report states: “In total therefore, as a conservative estimate, there is a need for the local contribution to be around £2.9m if both schemes were to be successful in attracting government funding.”
It adds: “If this bid was unsuccessful, there is a risk that costs spent up to bid submission and planning submission would need to be expensed. These are likely to be in the order of £600,000, of which approximately half has already been incurred.”
The Cheshire East Council highways and transport committee meeting takes place at 10.30am at Macclesfield Town Hall on Thursday June 16.
It would be interesting to know what CEC has already spent £300k on before the publication of this report. Perhaps they would supply residents with this detail.
If the application is successful, which I hope it is, will CEC have a meaningful public consultation exercise and keep us informed as it develops so that we don’t have a Middlewich Road situation.