The full cost to the taxpayer of a controversial legal battle between two councils totalled more than £100,000, a councillor has claimed.

Maidstone Borough Council (MBC) announced in March it was dropping its efforts for a judicial review of Kent County Council’s (KCC) use of £200,000 of developer contributions.

The authority objected to KCC’s plan to use the cash, which was intended for Sutton Road mitigation works, to finance a feasibility exercise for the proposed Leeds/Langley Bypass.

It ended up taking KCC to the High Court for a series of hearings, before a settlement on use of the contributions, known as section 106 monies, was ultimately agreed.

The proceedings over the the last year have seen MBC rack up a bill of £48,000.

Despite multiple requests earlier this year, KCC did not officially disclose how much it had spent on the dispute, however one Conservative councillor has now said its own costs had reached around £50,000, bringing the total expense to the taxpayer to more than six figures.

Cllr Gary Cooke said: "I look at this figure and see that it's 50% of the money being spent on the feasibility study in the first place.

"Both KCC and MBC need to work together for the benefit of the community, not wasting £100,000 that could have been put to all sorts of different purposes."

The agreement struck between the two councils earlier this year will see £2.6m of contributions used for the Sutton Road corridor between the junctions of Wallis Avenue and Loose Road, and £265,000 for improvements to the junction with Wallis Avenue and Willington Street.

The issue came to a head shortly after borough cllr Jonathan Purle of Maidstone Conservative group - which has long voiced its opposition to the legal action - called for an extraordinary council meeting to put an end to the proceedings.

Part of the settlement included a plan to set up strategic board between the two councils, where officers can discuss major projects affecting the borough, and a pledge to work collaboratively to prioritise schemes within the Maidstone Integrated Transport Package. MBC will also fund a dedicated transport planner to be employed by KCC, and the councils will jointly review the borough’s parking enforcement regime to try and generate more cash for transport projects.

KCC declined to comment.

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