FOREST Council taxpayers could be landed with an annual bill of at least £400,000 over seven years to fund part of the road through the proposed Northern Quarter development near Cinderford.

The Forest of Dean Council has agreed to underwrite 80 per cent the £3.8 million loan for the second phase of the spine road through the site – a total of £2.8 million if it needs to take up the offer the funding.

If it does, the bills will start arriving as the squeeze on local authority finances is expected to tighten.

The council has been offered the loan by the Gloucestershire Infrastructure Investment Fund on the understanding it can comply with 17 conditions.

Leader of the council, Cllr Patrick Molyneux, said: "We can't be certain how that will play and with any luck we will not need to draw the loan.

"We need to make sure we have secured funding and it is there with the council underwriting 80 per cent so we can move forward with the Cinderford Northern Quarter project."

Cllr Philip Burford (Ind, Hartpury) said councillors needed to be "aware of what we are walking into."

He said: "I'm very supportive of Cinderford Northern Quarter development.

"However, a loan of this size which we will have to repay, if we draw it down from 2017 against a baseline budget which is looking difficult looks like a substantial risk for this council.

"I'm not saying the risk is unreasonable and I'm not saying we shouldn't do it.

"What I am saying is that every member of this council needs to be aware of what we are walking into.

"It is a significant portion of our budget and our capital reserves."

Deputy leader of the council, Cllr Brian Robinson (Con, Mitch­el­dean) agreed it would be a "challenge" to find that amount of money.

He added: "It is a contingency situation where other things would have failed to get us into that position.

"We have, as a council, to take measured risk and this is measured risk where we're looking to support economic development in our community and take on some risk in that process. It would have some impact."

Cllr Andrew Gardiner (Ind, Lydbrook and Ruardean), a staunch opponent of the development, said the road would be paid for by selling off plots of land.

He said: "I'm suggesting the way you will recoup the £3.5 million (sic) is to sell off the Forest of Dean.

"You are setting a massive precedent."

But the ward's other councillor, Labour's Bruce Hogan, said the Northern Quarter "could and should be developed."

He said: "The area was mined and in the intervening five decades a rather special ecology has developed on that site.

"It is not an ecology which is typical of the rest of Forest of Dean and it is not even a mature ecology and therefore it is fragile and we should respect the fragility of what is there. "Are we really saying that brownfield sites that have developed (special ecologies) that you can't build in these areas?

"I think this is an area that can be developed and should be developed with the minimum of harm."