Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Council bosses defend subway costs
A bill running into hundreds of thousands of pounds to renovate three of the city’s subways has been defended by council chiefs.
In last week’s Gazette we exclusively revealed how the council had signed off on a bill of £320,000 for work on the St George’s and Riding Gate subways in Canterbury, work on which is almost complete, and for work on the Wincheap under pass.
At a meeting of the Canterbury Area Members’ Panel on Monday night, Cllr Nick Eden-green, who represents Wincheap, said the £55,000 ear-marked for the subway in his ward was too high. But not before he was scolded by the city council’s transportation and environment manager, Richard Moore, for raising his concerns with the Gazette.
Cllr Moore told him: “I feel quite upset you didn’t come to me first, to go through these figures, before you made these concerns known to the Gazette.”
In defending the expenditure for Wincheap’s work, due to start in March, he added: “There’s a huge amount of money in there for the railings and for treatment of the subway to make sure there’s no toxicity in there,” he said.
“There are also big costs associated with road closures and diversion signs that we had to factor in.”
Cllr Eden-green urged the council to look for some “permanent solutions” to the issues with graffiti and cleanliness in the district’s subways and reiterated his call for the Wincheap underpass to be tiled rather than painted, which has to be redone every few years.
Cllr Louise Jones suggested students at Canterbury College could take on the work.
Work is being funded by what is known as section 106 agreements from local developers which is ring-fenced for improvement works.