Bid for £1m for Boston Distributor Road design work was rejected

At the start of the year, Lincolnshire County Council applied for the sum to fund design work for the long-awaited £100 million project – as reported here.

The bid proved unsuccessful, however, as the council explained in a statement made to the Standard this week.

Karen Cassar, assistant director for Highways, said: “The county council submitted a strategic case to Central Government in January 2019, asking for £1m towards developing a business case for the Boston Distributor Road.

“The DfT (Department for Transport) responded saying there currently is no funding available for this or any ad-hoc projects. They suggested submitting the scheme through Midlands Connect for consideration under DfT’s Major Road Network (MRN) and Large Local Majors (LLM) programmes. However, because a business case is a crucial part of any funding submission, the project was deemed ‘not sufficiently developed’ by Midlands Connect.

“As a result, we are currently investigating other funding sources for developing a business case.”