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19.3.08
Haringey Council has admitted that the bungled management of a vital £4.5m regeneration project means it is racing against time to complete a new road before it loses funding on 1 April.
At last night's Cabinet Meeting, Haringey Council was forced to confirm that the project to build a new 'Haringey Heartlands Spine Road' to open up new areas of Wood Green for regeneration is massively behind schedule and in danger of losing its funding.
Haringey Council was awarded £4.6 million of regeneration money to build the road, starting in March 2006 and to be completed by the end of March this year. However, by the end of 2007, £2.8 million of this money was still left unspent due to delays. Last night the Cabinet member for the Environment was forced by Liberal Democrats to admit that millions of pounds of work still has to be completed in the last few weeks of March and the project is likely to run over its deadline. This would force Haringey Council to ask for money from other project partners such as the National Grid, or hit Council Tax payers with the bill for the delay.
Cllr Richard Wilson, Lib Dem Deputy Leader, comments:
"Desperately rushing to finish building a road in two weeks over Easter, cannot be an efficient or cost effective way of managing a two year project. I dread to think how much money is being wasted on extra pay and overtime to meet a deadline Haringey Council has known about for over two years.
"Even worse, if Haringey fail in this race against time, there is a risk that Haringey Council Tax payers will be hit with a bill for finishing the work."
Local councillor and Lib Dem Regeneration Spokesperson Fiyaz Mughal said;
"Haringey Council is trying to blame the weather, but any building project in the UK needs to be planned around the risk of wind and rain. Clearly this delay is down to Haringey Council's inability to properly manage big projects."
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