In December 2011 a decision was made that would cost Cambridgeshire council taxpayers tens of millions of pounds. We were told the £28 million estimate of the chosen Ely Bypass route was “good value for money” by the Conservative Cabinet. In the end it has cost £49 million. Was there a cheaper alternative – yes there was, but it crossed the land of Kings School Ely.

The Cabinet was asked to chose between a route that was shorter, cheaper (at £23m) and avoided a river crossing or one that, given the trouble experienced by the building of a railway bridge across the river just a few years before because of poor ground conditions, was going to be an engineering challenge.

The Conservative councillors chose the later route and a path that has led to the criticism by the county council’s internal audit team of the bypass project team that had only Conservative councillors on it who failed to share in a timely manner the escalating costs with the rest of the Council.

Would the other Ely bypass route have been cheaper? We will never know.