Almost £1m needed to finish Plymouth park flooding project

Plymouth City Council has diverted almost £1m of cash from other projects into a scheme to tackle flooding in Central Park.

The Central Park ponds scheme is the third phase of £9 million of improvements but has been subject to long delays due to bad weather and issues with the contractor.

The council said the the extra money would be diverted from funding streams including council running costs, grants and a road improvement programme.

A council spokesperson said: “It’s no secret that this project has gone on longer than any of us want.”

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service £237,000 will go towards the project from Plymouth City Council’s own revenue budget which pays for day-to-day running of the authority.

The council said it was using surplus cash from 2023/24 for what it described as an “expected” overspend on the project and said it would not lead to any financial pressure.

It said other money was coming from grants the council had received for green schemes and flood alleviation and £500,000 had been transferred from a road improvement programme to reduce skidding.

The council said the additional funds were needed to get the scheme finished “as soon as possible”.

Two new ponds and a sustainable drainage system have already been created in the Barn Park end of Central Park to reduce flooding in the Stonehouse area.

The main engineering works have been completed but the council said a large amount of landscaping, seeding and planting still needed to be carried out.

Landscaping is an integral part of the plan to slow the flow of water running down to the Barn Park entrance, the council said.

Without the planting and landscaping, the council said it would not fulfil the environmental targets for the scheme.

Work is expected to finish in late summer.