Tories grab transport fund for years to pay for guided bus legal costs

1.35.00pm GMT Thu 11th Feb 2010

Kilian Bourke

Tories are to grab £5 million of taxpayers' money earmarked for county transport projects to pay legal costs in the guided bus fiasco.

The money, given to Cambridgeshire County Council by the government will be robbed from the Local Transport Plan at £1 million a year for the next five years.

It means transport and safety projects across the county will be put on hold - and there are no guarantees the council will get back all the money.

Kilian Bourke, the Lib Dems' highways spokesman said: "The guided bus has not only affected our regular bus services but now it is impacting on future projects as well, which are being slashed to pay for the £5m in legal costs.

"The Tories promised that no taxpayers' money would be used for the busway. Now they are planning to take out money year on year from a fund designed to pay for small community transport and accident reduction schemes.

"It is unacceptable that these should be culled for pay for this white elephant. The taxpayer should be outraged that £5m of his money is being spent making lawyers rich instead of improving community transport."

The plan to plunder the money from the transport budget was revealed to councillors during the budget scrutiny process at Cambridgeshire County Council.

Ely North and East County Councillor, Nigel Bell said: "It has been made clear the expectation is that we will never recoup this money. The decision will impact on communities across the county, with local transport and safety projects put on hold indefinitely or even cancelled.

"Sadly, I suspect the reason the Tories are using this particular budget is because it comes from central government, so they can try to claim they have kept their promise that local taxpayers' money has not been used to bail out the guided bus project."

Kevin Wilkins, chair of Cambridge's transport committee said: "The guided bus will bring scant benefit to residents of Cambridge city. Now it is actually sucking millions out of transport plans to be spent not on the busway itself, but on legal fees. We were promised this would not happen."