More than £500,000 of developer's cash which was secured to fund a Holmes Chapel road scheme several years ago is still sat in Cheshire East's kitty waiting to be spent.

The money was originally intended for a roundabout scheme at the junction of the A50/A54, but that has since been scrapped because it is no longer viable.

The cash was secured through a S106 agreement – a legal agreement between the council and a developer to secure financial or other contributions to mitigate the impact of development.

Cllr Les Gilbert (Con), whose Dane Valley ward covers Holmes Chapel, has called on the council to speed up the process for dealing with cash secured through S106 agreements.

Cllr Les Gilbert (Photo: Cheshire East Council)

"There is more than £500,000 in the kitty for the A50/A54 Holmes Chapel. This is S106 monies which were intended to replace the traffic lights with a roundabout, but that scheme's been abandoned because the cost would have been more than a couple of million pounds," he told a meeting of the highways and transport committee.

"So we're left with more than half a million pounds in the kitty and nothing to spend it on.

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"Highways officers tell me that re-purposing this funding has been agreed but no specific purpose identified. I've tried to initiate a conversation about what we do with the money but, so far, without success."

He called on highways officers to hold talks with local councillors and other stakeholders 'with a view to spending the money that's just sitting there doing nothing'.

In August of last year, when the southern planning committee approved a new teaching block for Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School, Cllr Gilbert had suggested this £500,000 S106 money be used to fund a drop-off point at the school to help with the local gridlocked roads.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service this week that would still top his list of priorities for this funding.

"We need a discussion with interested parties like the school, the council… there may well be other ideas from other people," said Cllr Gilbert. "That's [school scheme] just my personal preference."

He added: "We find time and time again there are pots of money from S106 that just sit there. I think there needs to an accelerated process for deploying the funds."