Council leaders have insisted the M49 ghost junction farce is not their fault as they approved the forced sales of land to finally sort it out. But an opposition South Gloucestershire councillor criticised the debacle saying it was “very suspicious” that landowners could buy “ransom strips” to make money from the local authority, although there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing.
Cabinet members agreed the use of compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) while giving officers the go-ahead to continue negotiations to buy a patchwork of land parcels, wasteland, verges, drains and access rights, some as small as two square metres, belonging to various organisations and companies, including two based in Jersey. The motorway junction was built by Highways England, now National Highways, for £40million to £50million. Land sales are needed to join it to the local road network via a new 160-metre road, linking the giant nearby industrial estates and distribution centres, including Amazon, Lidl and Tesco.
The roundabout between Chittening and Severn Beach is currently unusable because the land issues were not resolved before it was completed in 2020, which means lorries have to take long diversions and clog up minor roads. A report to the council’s cabinet on Friday, February 10, said it was “highly unlikely” that the scheme could be finished without CPOs, not least because one of the plots’ ownership is not registered.
Read more: M49 ghost junction debacle near Bristol set to end as landowners forced to sell
National Highways is meeting the additional £7million costs for the local authority to buy the land and finish the project, for which a planning application was recently submitted. Yate North ward Lib Dem opposition Cllr Mike Drew told the meeting: “I still don’t understand who made the decision to go ahead with this junction without having the land acquired first.
“Whose fault is it? I assume it’s not this council but it might be, so who is it? It seems very suspicious that we have all these different landowners with little bits of land who appear to have somehow taken the opportunity to buy these ransom strips and make money from us.
“I suspect the value of the land after the assessment of the compulsory purchase will be greater than the amount of money the people paid for it in the first place. Someone needs to learn some lessons from this because it appears that if some people are thinking about putting in a major infrastructure project such as a motorway junction then there is the potential for people to buy bits of land there and then hold highways, government, local authority, whoever to ransom.
“So I would like to know that lessons have been learned from this, whoever should have learned the lessons.” Council leader Conservative Cllr Toby Savage said it was not the fault of the local authority, which stepped in for the first time in October 2021 to promote the link road by securing funding and land acquisition.
He said: “We are not carrying anything other than a determination to resolve a problem that is not of our making and that is why we have agreed to step in and why today is an incredibly important stage in being able to resolve an issue that should not have happened. But we wish to deal with it to unlock the benefits that junction will have to our communities and our economy.”
Conservative cabinet member for environment, regeneration and strategic infrastructure Cllr Steve Reade said: “This administration is committed to getting this link road built. It asked the council to step in in 2021 to get the project moving and I am delighted to see how far we’ve got since then.
“The new link road will help ease congestion on local roads and unlock significant benefits for South Gloucestershire communities. As the desire is to build the road as quickly as possible we need to secure the land in a timely manner, so the use of the CPOs may be required should negotiations with landowners break down for any reason.
“We wish to pursue negotiations. The council continues to work closely with all the landowners to secure the land.” A council officer said land prices were evaluated by an independent valuer and that any compensation costs would be covered in the scheme’s budget.
He said: “There is a long history to this and we will examine what steps have been taken throughout that history by various different partners.” The road could finally open to drivers by November 2024, although any landowners’ objections to a CPO would require a public inquiry, in which case work would probably not start until August next year and be completed 12 to 18 months later – potentially into 2026.
Read next:
The M49 ghost junction missing link is finally being connected
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Plans for nearly 600 homes north of Bristol granted permission on appeal
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