Underpass costs going up and up

Published: 9:45 AM July 16, 2009 Updated: 3:39 PM November 1, 2020

As a local newspaper you have a duty to keep local people correctly informed about local issues. This becomes even more important when we, as rate payers, are paying the bills. Your page five story on the underpass project (Walking for a Better Deal, Crow

As a local newspaper you have a duty to keep local people correctly informed about local issues. This becomes even more important when we, as rate payers, are paying the bills.

Your page five story on the underpass project (Walking for a Better Deal, Crow July 9) was incorrect to say Sustrans are behind the �3.7million scheme to provide an underpass at Coombes Hole.

Sustrans involvement is offering �800,000 if a designated cycle path is included in a Herts County Council scheme for an underpass.

At the time the total budget was much lower and a crossing should have been completed by now. The cost has now risen to �3.7million, and is still rising. And that's before the project has even started.

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As Coombes Lane is heaped to the centre and not wide enough for current use and the cycle track, it's inclusion to get a grant should be looked at very closely. Is it even needed? Let alone worth the extra cost, delays, and legal trouble?

Its inclusion is the reason why ex-councillor Doug Drake did not see the underpass completed on a much smaller budget during his term in office and it may yet have toi be scrapped due to rising costs and legal trouble, most of which is related to the inclusion of the separate cycle track.