THE company building a £22 million relief road in Taunton has missed yet another deadline.

Carillion had promised to complete the Northern Inner Distributor Road by mid-February, which it has failed to achieve.

It is the latest in a catalogue of missed finish dates for the NIDR, which was originally due to open to traffic almost two years ago.

The mile-long road will run from Staplegrove Road at its junction with Chip Lane across the disused rail bridge over Station Road to Priory Avenue.

A spokesman for Somerset County Council said: “We are extremely disappointed that Carillion have not finished work by mid-February as previously advised.

"Once they have finished there then has to be a time for checking and fixing defects.

"Until the checking has been done it is difficult to give a firm date for opening.

"Progress continues to be made on site and we will keep the pressure on Carillion to see the works finished and road open as quickly as possible.”

The reason for the hold ups has not been made public and Somerset County Council will only inform individual councillors if they sign a gagging order agreeing not to repeat the information in public.

Carillion and the council are arguing over the final bill for the scheme, with the contractor believed to have demanded several million pounds more than the original bill, with the county refusing to pay up.