A controversial legal battle between two councils over a key road project has cost taxpayers almost £50,000.

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

The town hall objected to KCC proposing to use the cash, which was intended for Sutton Road mitigation works, to finance a feasibility exercise for the proposed Leeds/Langley Bypass.

As a result, it ended up taking the county council 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.

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

The agreement 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 the improvement of the junction with Wallis Avenue and Willington Street.

The issue came to a head shortly after Cllr Jonathan Purle of the Conservative group - which has long voiced its opposition to the legal proceedings - intervened at a meeting, which resulted in the council proposing to ditch a small committee which met in private to rubber-stamp the legal action last May.

Part of the settlement included a plan to set up a Maidstone 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 parking enforcement regime across the borough during the next financial year to try and generate more cash for transport projects.

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