The mayor of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority, James Palmer, is asking the transport and infrastructure board to back his recommendation that the St Neots Foot & Cycle Bridge should not proceed.

In 2018, the authority approved a US$5.3 million package of funding to deliver the first phase of a masterplan for St Neots, including a US$4 million contribution towards the US$5.9 million scheme to provide a new foot and cycle bridge in St Neots town centre together with improvements to the riverside area.

St Neots Foot & Cycle Bridge

However, Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) has received a feasibility report that indicates the overall cost for the bridge to be in the region of US$9.5 million, made up of construction costs of US$8.2 million and associated costs of US$1.3 million.

A report prepared for next week’s meeting says that a review of the project by CCC determined that the scheme had limited scope for value engineering or bringing the construction costs back in line to the approved budget. The review also demonstrated that the increase in costs had resulted in a benefit-cost ratio of less than one.

WSP had been appointed last year to develop the detailed design from Knight Architects’ concept.