Coventry City Council is hoping to win a share of a £2.5 billion government fund to finance the lowering of the city’s ring road.

The council has joined forces with Advantage West Midlands to try and attract the investment, which would come from the government’s capital modernisation fund.

The outcome of the bid will not be known for around six weeks, and Duncan Elliot team leader for the city centre at Coventry City Council admitted that the plans would remain vague until then.

He said:

"This is just something that we would like to do, but we have not fully investigated the feasibility or practicality of it.

"It would seem irrelevant to do that until we get at least an amber light from a major grant agency, then we can start investing in some detailed research."

And Elliot is convinced that if the ring road was lowered it would prove to be a great advantage to the city.

He said:

"At the moment it is a barrier to the city centre and lowering it to ground level would allow Coventry to grow its peripheral activity.

"The scheme would open the Canal Basin and swing round to the site of the city’s hospital continuing as far as the London Road, which would completely change the make-up of the city centre."

This view was echoed by the chief executive of the City Centre Company Liz Millett, who believes the move would be a positive one for Coventry.

She said:

"Our position is that it would be a very beneficial step and would remove the artificial boundary to the city centre.

"There are some very exciting things going on over that barrier which would suddenly become more accessible, such as the development at the Canal Basin.

"Although there are many advantages to the ring road there are also some disadvantages, for instance, I believe it may limit how busy the city centre is at night."