£6m slip road will have to wait
Warwickshire County Council has acknowledged calls for a new slip road to be built on the junction of the A444/Newtown Road in Bedworth as valid, but in the current financial climate the development will have to wait.
Cllr Martin Heatley, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for the Environment with responsibilities for highways, said: “A colleague has made comments in the media calling for a new slip road on the A444/Newtown Road junction, and asking for a travel study to be completed. This has already taken place.
“When the study was done in 2002 it found that building the slip road onto the road would cost in the region of £6m.
“We recognise the benefits of completing the junction - improving traffic access to south Bedworth to and from the north and relieving traffic in the town centre by enabling southbound A444 traffic to exit and northbound traffic to join at the junction.
“However, our investigations at the possibility of new slip roads also estimated the cost of the works, in the order of £6m, and at present there is no allocation for this expenditure in the council’s Capital Programme and is unlikely to in the immediate future.
“One thing we are looking at for the future is funding the scheme from contributions from future housing and employment growth in the area.”