Council leader: Relief road "has to happen"

It's already been blocked twice by the government

A new relief road for Cullompton “has to happen,” the new leader of Mid Devon District Council believes.

The Liberal Democrats, led locally by Luke Taylor, secured a big majority on the council in last week’s local elections – winning 33 of the 42 seats.

The council’s previous Independent/Conservative administration tried to get the road, planned for the east of the town, approved, but was rejected twice by the government’s levelling-up fund.

Mid Devon is around £19 million short of the road’s projected £30 million cost.

Originally set to cost £15 million, the cost has ballooned; blamed on increased construction costs, replacing sporting facilities and the potential cost of land.

The road is seen as essential for Cullompton, improving capacity at junction 28 of the M5, reducing traffic through the town centre and unlocking the development of 2,000 homes nearby.

“The relief road has to happen,” Cllr Taylor told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. “If you look at Cullompton; people there have had enough.

“Every candidate we stood in Cullompton was successfully returned and that was promising that we’ve got to crack on with the relief road. That’s what we need to push on with now.”

Fellow Lib Dem councillor James Buczkowski, who represents Cullompton itself, recently suggested borrowing the money for the project and paying it back in the long-term through developer housing contributions.

However, finance officer Andrew Jarrett told him in March it was “not something we are looking to do or could do in the short to medium term” due to it putting a “very significant funding requirement” on the rest of the council.

But Cllr Taylor appears more receptive. “Whether we can borrow the money; it might have to be something that we look at, but it has to happen.

“We can’t keep developing and building houses. Cullompton’s expanding at a phenomenal rate and we’ve got to say enough is enough. There isn’t the infrastructure.

“The roads in the morning are chaos. I use the road in the morning and it can be a 20-minute period to get through Cullompton … from one side to the other, because the relief road needs to be built.

“The motorway junction itself isn’t ideal but the relief road will help and take traffic out of the high street. We need to get it done and it needs to get done quickly.”