The move, outlined in the city council’s Medium Term Strategy document, is designed to reduce slippage in the pipeline of projects which resulted in a backlog of projects of £3.5m at the end of last year.

These projects, part of a £29.7 million programme, fall across a range of areas including play and sporting activities.

Cllr Bick said: “Capital spending brings many positive improvements for communities in the city and they are often keenly awaited, from play areas to litter bins and toilet refurbishment. It also has the positive economic benefit of providing jobs and prosperity, particularly needed at this time. So there is a double reason why we have regarded it as a priority to get this problem fixed and accelerate delivery. If we don’t tackle our backlog, it will simply knock-on into future years.

“The review has established that many schemes had been separately costed each assuming the availability of the same in-house expertise. But in aggregate people were counting that same availability several times over and bottlenecks developed. The extra funding we are now making available will enable this to be rectified for current schemes in the pipeline – and we are changing the method of costing for new schemes.”

“So, for those projects in the city council’s own hands, this measure should put us back on track over the next 18 months and it is good news for all those awaiting progress.”