An extra £35.5m is needed to finish the Portishead railway line project, according to North Somerset Council. The railway line, which will connect Portishead to Bristol, is not expected to re-open until 2024.
The project has been hit with delays, and the council says that because of this, the cost of the scheme has risen unexpectedly to £152m. Council leader Steve Bridger says the council and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) are seeking to commit an extra £10m each to the project, and are asking the Department for Transport to close the remaining £15.5m funding gap.
According to the council, the problems have been caused by "delays to approval of the scheme’s Development Consent Order (DCO) and unprecedented global increases to the cost of energy, labour and construction materials."
