THE cost of Colchester’s town deal projects are running over budget... but work is underway to redress the problem.

Colchester was one of 101 towns in England to bid for up to £25 million in town deal funding.

An offer of £19.2 million was made last year – £1 million for accelerated public space projects in St Nicholas’ Square and Balkerne Gate and £18.2 million for the main projects.

Colchester Council chief executive Adrian Pritchard revealed at a meeting of the scrutiny panel, the total cost of all 14 projects was running over budget by £18,685.

However, he said was confident the council could get back into the £19.2 million envelope.

He said: “We’ve already had to, through the town deal board, actually look at how we allocate and reallocate funding to bring us back into that envelope of £19.2 million.”

The main projects include urban regeneration, such as building new affordable homes in Greenstead, skills and enterprise infrastructure, and digital and physical connectivity, including a 5G network in the town centre and new walking and cycling routes.

Liberal Democrat group leader Mark Cory, who chaired the meeting, also raised the issue of rising inflation and asked if the council could request more funding from the Government.

He said: “Just with the Bank of England looking at costs of inflation increasing to around seven per cent within this year, just a quick calculation sees us at £1.2 million just through inflation on the entire budget.”

He added: “I’m asking whether we can go to Government because if we’re incorporating it, it means we’re probably doing less than we could have done.”

Officers answering questions from the council’s scrutiny panel said inflationary costs had been taken into account.

Economic development manager Matthew Brown said there had been specific cost modelling for all the business cases involved in the town deal.

He told the meeting: “Certainly on the bigger projects, the higher risk projects, I can give absolute confidence a great deal of work has gone on behind the scenes just to get really robust and realistic.”

Lindsay Barker, strategic director of policy and place, confirmed the council had asked the Government for more money, but other authorities are also likely to be asking. There has currently been no commitment from the Government beyond the current budget.