Совет графства Ковентри потратит 198 млн фунтов на масштабные проекты развития города

Coventry City Council has confirmed it is this year spending £198million on major schemes including City Centre South, the Very Light Rail tram project and the City Centre Cultural Gateway. Some of the cash will also go on schools and highway improvements. But council taxpayers won't foot the bill because most of it is being paid for by external grants. The authority's finance officers admitted there were pressures on spending from inflation and the impact of the Iran war on energy and fuel costs. READ MORE: Council 'seeks to prosecute' oil dump offenders in new fly-tipping enforcement crackdown READ MORE: Coventry residents urge council to 'save business park' over E.ON site housing plans The Cabinet this week approved a revised capital programme which has been boosted to £198.2m by a £26.5m top-up of unspent cash left over from last year. This is due to work that had to be rearranged when the timetable didn't turn out as planned. Of the rescheduled amount, £3m is from the City Centre South regeneration scheme, where a large part of central Coventry is being razed and will be replaced by 1,575 apartments plus hotel, retail, cafe, restaurant, leisure, office and community uses. There were changes to when knocking down existing buildings was carried out, so some money wasn't spent last year. Demolition is now said to be complete and the council says the regeneration is still on course with its construction phase. Another £5.2m of expenditure was postponed from the Very Light Rail scheme, an innovative tram concept running on a shallow track just 1ft deep that doesn't affect underlying pipes and cables. Adjustments to the detailed design delayed the installation contract, the council said. £5.8m was moved into this year for the City Centre Cultural Gateway. Some work couldn't go ahead in 2025/2026 due to challenges arising from changes to building regulations. The gateway will see the old IKEA building, which closed in 2020 and has been purchased by the council, turned into a cultural hub. While empty, it has been used as a film set for Lenny Henry's drama Three Little Birds and BBC fashion series Style It Out. The council is aiming for the project to "not only enrich Coventry's cultural landscape but also stimulate economic growth." It is working alongside organisations including the British Council, Arts Council England, CV Life and Coventry University, and says there is potential for significant job creation and economic value. In addition, there was £7.5m of spending rescheduled from highways improvements including the Coventry South transport packages in the area around London Road. Design changes after land negotiations and an extended public consultation were among the reasons that amount will be spent in 2026/2027 instead. Barry Hastie, the council's director of finance and resources, said almost three quarters (£147.2m) of the capital programme is funded by external grants while another fifth (£39.7m) is paid for by borrowing. The rest of the money comes from capital receipts of £5.2m, and revenue contributions and reserves of £6.1m. Mr Hastie's report to the Cabinet said: "The council's capital spending is projected to be £198.2m and includes major schemes progressing across the city. The size of the programme and the nature of the projects within it continue to be fundamental to the council's role within the city. "The programme remains largely funded by external grants and contributions, although inflationary and wider market pressures continue to affect capital schemes." He added that all existing and future schemes must be completed within agreed contractual sums and will continue to be "monitored and managed within the available resources." Mr Hastie explained that financial pressures had arisen because of the Middle East conflict as well as above-target inflation. He said: "The first quarter of the financial year has continued to experience some market volatility as the war in Iran continues to disrupt the transportation and supply of energy, raising its price and pushing up households' motor fuel costs as well as utility bills. There were signs that the economy was starting to falter with a 0.1% fall in real GDP in April. "UK headline consumer price inflation (CPI) remained stable at 2.8% in both April and May, dropping to 2.6% in June, below expectations of a rise to 3.0% despite the anticipated pass-through of higher energy prices to consumers. "While this suggests that underlying inflationary pressures remain relatively contained, inflation continues to exceed the Bank of England's 2% target, indicating that price stability has not yet been fully restored. "Meanwhile, Core CPI, which excludes more volatile components such as energy and food, edged up from 2.5% to 2.6%, pointing to some persistence in underlying price pressures."