Contractors have finally been given the green light to start building a bypass around a congested North Somerset village.

North Somerset Council voted in its full council meeting on April 1 to issue contractors Galliford Try with a notice to proceed with the construction of the Banwell bypass.

It is the last council decision needed before work on the actual building of the road can commence.

Banwell has been plagued by uniquely terrible traffic since at least the mid-eighteenth century. And today, two A-roads funnel traffic into the village which at one point has to go down a single track lane.

The council’s executive member for spatial planning, placemaking, and economy Mark Canniford (Weston-super-Mare Hillside, Liberal Democrat) said: “Galliford Try have been active on the site up to this stage and done all the environmental works and are now ready to progress to that stage to construct.

“With permission from this council and support for this motion tonight we will move to that stage and get this bypass open by 2027 with a good wind behind us.”

2027 will be exactly a century since the bypass was first proposed in 1927. The plans have finally become a firm project in recent years, but have been hit by delays — including the original contractors quitting the project — amid high inflation in the construction sector which has seen the total cost for the project rise from an initial government-funded £66m to £90m, and then rise again from £90m to £105m.

Councillors voted to sign off a £14.5m increase in the project’s budget, with £9.7m coming from Homes England who provided the initial funding for the bypass, and £4.8m from North Somerset Council through capital reinvestment, developer contributions, and from the economic development fund.

Mr Canniford said the council had been able to borrow money from the West of England Combined Authority based on economic growth in the area.