Tellingly, estimated costs have more than doubled within the last three years, from £14.4M reported for the eastern bypass in 2004, to over £33M in 2007.

Several times previously, WCC has attempted to attract funding for a big road around Westbury - all without success...    Up to £3M of our local council tax money has been wasted on designing and promoting WCC's eastern bypass.

The spiralling cost is because the eastern route is fundamentally unsuitable.

And the eastern bypass design concept is proving to be basically inadequate.

The 1996-based construction estimate presented to the county councillors, when they voted for the eastern route for a Westbury bypass, was £9.4M.

In 2004, WCC told the BBSCS consultants that the cost was £14.4M.  WCC's bid back then was unsuccessful...   The Government suggested that no further bids be put in for another eight years, unless they have been approved or are ready to go forward.    The Westbury bypass scheme comes into neither category.

The cost reported in 2004 was roughly in line with the DTI indices for publicly funded road schemes.   But they are often not good value.   The Chief Executive of the Highways Agency has recently acknowledged that the long-held opinion that congestion can be solved by road building has been shown to be wrong.

For the whole period, from 1996 to 2010, overall inflation will be about 36%.

Compare £9.4M in 1996 with £35M + by 2010 (WCC's latest theoretical start).

So, whilst the general UK inflation will have increased by just over a third, the cost of this WCC eastern bypass scheme has gone up by well over three times.

 By coincidence, councillors were told of a benefits value for an eastern bypass of about three times the 1996 construction cost.   So this eastern bypass now has no real economic justification.   And further cost increases will emerge.

WCC has also missed out the Westbury International Rail Freight Terminal.

And is half-blind to the vast West Wilts Trading Estate in Westbury.

Such simple comparisons tell a tale, which some Wiltshire County Councillors (who made the original wrong decision) do not yet appear to have grasped.

Instead, improbable road traffic benefits in far-away places such as Trowbridge and Frome are being claimed for a Westbury bypass, such is the desperation.

But some of the county councillors are pressing on with their costly bypass.

They are wasting our money, in addition to the environmental cost of their road scheme.