Personally I wouldn't call environmental improvements such as new kerbs and lights etc a waste of money. It's about time we started spending money on our streetscape to give us a city to be truly proud of. I don't know about you but I'm sick to death of travelling around this city and seeing nothing but crappy pavements, pot holes, filth, rusted street furniture and poor lighting.
You have my agreement there 100%, however Edge Lane has been billed at a Multi-million quid enhancement, and all they have done is to titivate it up with new kerbs and new lights. They've done nothing at all to improve the flow of traffic in the slightest. That's what annoys me the most - tax that I have to pay has gone on virtually installing gold paving down Edge Lane so it looks better. It'll soon weather and look exactly like it did before hand 10 years down the line.

Regarding the church, if you look at the plans the new road would be angled away from the church and widened into the area where the derelict houses currently stand.
Looking at the streaming video of Edge Lane, all they are doing at the Church location is putting in an extra lane near the traffic lights so you can turn right. That's the only extra piece of road they're putting there - hardly worth the millions of pounds being spent on the 'redevelopment'.