Galliford Try wins £85m Melton Mowbray scheme

Leicestershire County Council has awarded Galliford Try’s Highways business an £85m contract to build the North East Melton Mowbray Distributor Road.

The project will see a new road built to connect branches of the A606 around the north east edge of Melton Mowbray, creating a new through route and aiming to reduce congestion in the town centre.

Galliford Try chief executive Bill Hocking said: ‘We are delighted to be working once again with Leicestershire on another major roads scheme.

‘Our Sustainable Growth Strategy is built on collaborative working partnerships with central and local government and our frameworks, and this project is more evidence of the success of that approach.’

The cost of the scheme, which was procured through the Midlands Highways Alliance has effectively doubled since it was awarded £49.5m Large Local Major (LLM) funding from the Department for Transport in 2018.

At that time, its cost was estimated at £63.5m but last year it was revealed that the forecast cost had increased to £116.1m, and could outturn at £127.7m.

In addition to the LLM cash, £4m will come from the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership, as well as an anticipated £14m of developer contributions, in part forward-funded by the council, which also expects to receive over £9m for the sale of land whose development is dependent upon the road.

The council agreed to proceed with the scheme, despite the soaring cost, noting it would need to provide any further funding necessary – estimated at the time to be £51m.