Revamp costs 'total madness'

'ESCALATING COSTS' COULD REACH TOTAL £18M BUDGET

- WILLIAM TELFORD

THE regeneration of Plymouth's Old Town Street and New George Street could end up costing £11m more than originally planned.

One city councillor called the cost “total madness” and said he wasn’t even impressed with the finished project.

But Plymouth City Council cited ‘escalating costs’ beyond their control, and said the new-look area is already ‘making a difference’

Cllr Steve Ricketts, independent councillor for Drake, asked senior council officers for the exact cost of the ambitious revamp, which began four and a half years ago. He was told that the original cost of £7m had ballooned and had been given an allocated budget of £18,139,650.

Officers stressed that the work was not yet complete but still expected to be within that figure. But the amount set aside for the work is still higher than the £16,752,850 price tag put on the project in November 2023.

Cllr Ricketts said he was “lost for words”. He told The Herald: “It’s abysmal - complete madness.”

And he said he wasn’t even impressed with the finished product. He said: “It’s not like you have bang for your buck, a revolutionary scheme that people are looking at.

“It’s nothingness. If you had said we are going to spend £18m and it would look like this. We could have built a new music venue or a myriad of things.”

The Old Town Street and New George Street scheme underwent a number of revisions since it was first announced six years ago. Initially it was predicted that 10 new shops with glass frontages extending out to the end of the canopy in Old Town Street would be created.

And there were plans for six “retail pavilions” which could accommodate stores or leisure and hospitality businesses. But these proposals never got off the ground and were abandoned.