Criticism has been levelled at Wiltshire Council over its A350 bypass plans.

The council has been given £1.3m by the Department for Transport to produce an outline business case for the road, but the expected cost of the document is expected to be £1.8m.

And its decision to fund the remaining £530,000 gap with capital funding has come under fire from council taxpayer Phil Chipper.

In a year where the council has faced significant financial pressure due to Covid, he asked: “Why is Wiltshire Council planning on spending £530,000 that it doesn’t seem to have, on producing a document for the A350 Melksham bypass project, that it almost certainly can’t responsibly afford to finance its share of for a decade, if ever?”

He added the council had made other financial commitments including the Chippenham Housing Infrastructure Fund bid, the extension to Melksham Oaks and the community campus.

He asked: “Does anyone think that all of the council’s outstanding stated commitments can be honoured and if so, where is the money coming from?”

The council said the school expansion was covered through S106 agreements with housing developers, with the remainder coming from a ring fenced Department for Education grant for additional pupil places.

The government will pay £75m for the Chippenham A350 scheme but this hinges on the projects being finalised by March 2024. The campus project was deferred to 2021/22 to support the county’s recovery from the pandemic.

The council acknowledged 2020 has been financially difficult, but its latest forecast shows a £71,000 underspend in 2020/21.

It added the DfT can ask the authority to repay the cash if the project does not go ahead but it does not expect this to be the case unless the project is axed by the government body.

Leader of the council, Philip Whitehead said: “This relates to our revenue budget, which is not used in respect of long-term investments.“While the next financial year and beyond will be challenging, we are committed to investing in Wiltshire, and this remains a priority for us.

“We will continue to invest in capital projects for the people of Wiltshire, and where opportunities arise, we will seek to secure government investment to help us achieve this. We have always been a forward-thinking council and that won’t change, despite what challenges may lie ahead.”