A £70 MILLION bid to dual Worcester's Carrington Bridge has reignited calls for a Northern Relief Link Road around the city.

Worcestershire County Council's opposition Labour group says it fears the massive upgrade will prove "pointless" unless the long-abandoned ring road project is back on the agenda.

Councillor Richard Udall, the group's infrastructure spokesman, said stopping the improvements at the Carrington overhaul would leave Worcester "dependent on one bridge".

But the stance has been rejected by Worcester's MP, who insists the county needs to focus on getting the money for one huge infrastructure scheme first before focusing on anything else.

As the Worcester News revealed last week, Worcestershire's Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has teamed up with the county council and gone cap-in-hand to central Government for development funding over the A4440 bridge.

Councillor Udall said: "We support the request for cash to dual the bridge, but in itself it is not enough.

"Worcester cannot be dependent on just one bridge and one road to take all the pressure away from through traffic which gridlocks St John's and the city centre.

"Without a commitment to completing the ring road we're simply going to create just more space for queuing traffic.

"With the extra proposed new developments to the south and west of Worcester we desperately need new infrastructure.

"This would enable the growth to happen without a serious congestion problem which causes detrimental impact upon the current road network, and already creates a daily challenge to the quality of life for local people."

He said the recent chaos from the Southern Link Road gas leak was a good example of the problems of relying on "just one road to link the west of the river to the M5".

Despite his fresh call council chiefs have already ruled out a Northern Relief Link Road until before 2030, with planning officials saying the city does not need it.

As part of the work which went into the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP), we revealed in 2014 how a document was created stating the 28,370 home-dossier does "not require" the link road "either in whole or part".

Proposals for a northern link first emerged in 2010, when the council revealed drawings showing a new River Severn crossing near Bevere island.

But the costs, estimated at well over £100 million at the time, meant in recent years County Hall has focused on other road improvements including the current £38 dualling of the southern link and now potentially Carrington Bridge.

Worcester MP Robin Walker said: "In my view it's sequential, we've got to dual Carrington Bridge before we have that debate about other infrastructure, otherwise we ask for two things and get neither."

Councillor Simon Geraghty, the council's leader, has pointed to the bridge project having the backing of major businesses in Worcestershire, all local authorities, MPs and the LEP.