A LEADING councillor has called for details of multi-million pound maintenance issues with the Medway Tunnel to be made public.

Cllr Paul Godwin, leader of the opposition at Medway Council, tried unsuccessfully to get a secret report on the tunnel discussed in public by the regeneration scrutiny committee on Wednesday.

But Conservatives voted down any public discussion until their legal adviser can explain why the district’s taxpayers face millions of pounds of bills to replace computers, install CCTV and make the 12-year-old tunnel fireproof.

The report is understood to contain details of a cash row between the council and the Rochester Bridge Trust, which funded the building of the tunnel in the 1990s.

But details of why the trust claims the council had reneged on its contract to maintain the tunnel, and whether it would increase payments to maintain the tunnel’s crumbling infrastructure, were barred.

Cllr Godwin said: “What has been ruled inadmissible is historical information about the funding of the tunnel and other matters for which this council’s overriding concern would be the public interest.

“There is nothing in there that is confidential.

“It relates to an arrangement we have with another organisation, and should be in the public domain.”

The council’s legal adviser, Deborah Upton, was not present, but another legal expert, Jonathan Male, said it was for the committee to consider her advice.

The council has insisted that the tunnel is structurally safe, but Cllr Godwin said the financial situation was becoming urgent.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Cllr Geoff Juby, supported him.

“It should be debated tonight,” he said.

“It has long-term financial considerations for the council.”

Regeneration director Robin Cooper hoped the council would have reached an agreement this weekend for the bridge wardens to pay for this year’s repairs.

No other tunnel is maintained at the expense of a British council.

The Government again refused this week to fund the tunnel because it is not on a motorway or major road.

Mr Cooper warned it was possible the council could face nearly £3 million of extra expense to maintain it in the next three years.