A PEDESTRIAN footbridge to be named after a little girl who died in a road accident is likely to be built on time despite a blunder which left the project critically short of money.

Kent County Council has admitted that its contractors had made a huge error when calculating the cost of the scheme, known as the Jade Crossing. Nine developers bid for the bridge contract, but even the cheapest tender for the work was £400,000 more than KCC's original estimate of about £660,000.

County Hall has now promised to make up the shortfall as the family of Jade Hobbs recovered from the shock announcement.

The Hobbs have fought tirelessly for the footbridge after their eight-year-old daughter and her 79-year-old grandmother, Margaret Kuwertz, were killed crossing the A249 Sittingbourne Road, Detling, outside their home, on December 16, 2000.

A fund set up in Jade's memory has raised almost £100,000 for the crossing and other road safety initiatives since her death.

Her father, Paul Hobbs, of Pilgrims Way, Detling, said: "We still want to know where the money is coming from. It's just words at the moment. Whoever estimated the cost of the bridge should go. It is complete incompetence."

KCC set aside about £260,000 of its own money last year to build the crossing, submitting a successful bid to the Government for the rest. But it has had to admit that its estimators had got the cost of the bridge badly wrong.

Cllr Grahame Weston (Con), chairman of KCC's highways advisory board, told a meeting of the Jade Crossing sub committee that the money would be found.

He said: "We received nine tenders for the work which were significantly greater than the original estimate. The effect of this was that the contract was not signed as it was supposed to be on January 11, but we are totally committed to this project and extra funding will be found."

The committee decided to wait for a progress report before deciding whether to continue with its plans to officially open the bridge as part of the village's Queen's Jubilee celebrations on June 3.