‘In 2021 the Council secured £16.7m of Levelling Up funding from the UK Government for the Towy Valley Cycle Path. This had a requirement for all funds to be spent by 31st March 2024, or exceptionally by 31st March 2025. Further to which, and given delays to date, presumably the Council has scenario planned for the event that it does not meet the extended deadline. What forecast costs would fall to the Council should work be incomplete at 31st March 2025, and how has this been budgeted for?’
Minutes:
‘In 2021 the Council secured £16.7m of Levelling Up funding from the UK Government for the Towy Valley Cycle Path. This had a requirement for all funds to be spent by 31st March 2024, or exceptionally by 31st March 2025. Further to which, and given delays to date, presumably the Council has scenario planned for the event that it does not meet the extended deadline. What forecast costs would fall to the Council should work be incomplete at 31st March 2025, and how has this been budgeted for?’
Response by Councillor Edward Thomas – Cabinet Member For Transport, Waste and Infrastructure Services:-
Thank you for your question.
As you may already know part of the Tywi Valley Cycle Path is already open, the pathway linking Carmarthen Museum in Abergwili with Bwlch Bach to Fronun, and on to Whitemill opened a while ago. As we will expect form the completed path, it offers cyclists and walkers beautiful scenery including views of the Bishops Palace gardens. It provides a safe and traffic-free way for people to cycle and see the County.
Now, your question falls into three parts, ‘will the funds be spent by the original deadline?’, ‘have we extended the deadline for expenditure?’, and ‘what could happen if we don’t meet a revised deadline?’.
So, to cover the first two questions, will the funds be spent by the original deadline and have we extended the deadline for expenditure? As I mentioned earlier some of the path is already open and work remains ongoing, we’re currently working on a section within Nantgaredig. However, the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) Inquiry held in November is yet to provide a determination. In order to expedite the situation, we have written to the Minister for Climate Change to emphasise the need for early ministerial decision so that in the event the CPO is approved, the Council can progress to the next phase of acquiring the order land, ensuring scheme delivery at the earliest opportunity. Bearing this in mind, under the terms of the funding a project adjustment request was made in July last year, following which we were granted a formal extension allowing the funds from the Levelling Up fund to be available until the 31st of March 2025. In effect an extension of one year.
So, what will happen if we don’t meet a revised deadline? Well, we remain confident that even in the event that construction works cannot continue fully until later in the year, by tendering multiple construction packages to run concurrently, we will fully deliver against the Levelling Up Grant within the deadline. As part of the grant award, we were required to provide match funding for the project which amounts to £1.864m, this funding has already been committed to the project.
This element of County Council funding is not subject to time restrictions and any overrun beyond 31st March 2025 can therefore be accommodated.
The Tywi Valley Cycle Path is an important project for Carmarthenshire and for tourism across West Wales, it has many benefits – there are environmental benefits through encouraging people to travel by bike or on foot for local and longer distance journeys, providing more opportunities for active travel as well as contributing to local and national carbon reduction and air quality targets.
There are benefits in terms of links to key employment, education, leisure, health, cultural and retail sites across the beautiful Tywi Valley and will provide opportunities for business development, growth and agricultural diversification through enhanced visitor spend in the area.
The path will also offer significant benefits for the county with the potential to generate around £4.4million a year for the local economy, creating jobs in local businesses through enhanced visitor attraction and spend.
As I said, this is an important project for us, and we are confident in its delivery and our ability to complete the work required to access the funding awarded to us within the specified deadline.
Supplementary Question by Mrs Tara-Jane Sutcliffe:
Thank you very much, I appreciate your time on this. However, it doesn’t entirely answer my question – have you or have you not contingency planned that the project over runs March 31st next year? If so, how much, because if it is a £16.7 million project plus the £1.8 million, that is an awful lot of millions, a very expensive project, is there a risk that it could over run such that the liabilities would be more than the £1.8 million that is already assigned?
Response by Councillor Edward Thomas – Cabinet Member For Transport, Waste and Infrastructure Services:-
I think I have already stated we are confident that we will complete the project and that we have got the funds to overrun.