Cambridgeshire County Council has been deducting almost £14,000 a day in late delivery damages from the contractor since February 2009 as the battle between the two parties continues.
Following a council cabinet meeting last week, senior councillors described BAM Nuttall’s latest delays as “unnecessary” as although the firm has told council bosses all their major work is now complete, they have left the submission of construction and design certificates until the last minute instead of submitted them once each part of the project was completed.
The council says that it needs both design and construction certificates for it to be confident that the scheme has been built correctly. The project manager, independent of both client and contractor, cannot certify the contract as complete until the most important certificates for the main structures have been received and are satisfactory.
According to the council, BAM Nuttall has yet to submit five construction and design certificates. A further 47 construction certificates that had been previously been rejected also need to be resubmitted, and accepted, before the contract can be certified as complete.
The timescale for when the scheme can be certified as complete is in BAM Nuttall’s hands as the certificates that are outstanding must be submitted, the council said.
Once BAM Nuttall complete the busway contract it will have 28 days to fix all notified defects on the route. BAM Nuttall was notified of defects between St Ives and Cambridge, such as a flooded and impassable cycleway, more than two years ago but has refused to correct the defects, the council says.
If the contractor does not correct the defects within the 28 days permitted, and the council does not expect it to, then a new contractor has been lined to come in to fix the problems and will hit the ground running. The costs of this work will be deducted from BAM Nuttall.
Roy Pegram, cabinet member for growth, infrastructure and strategic planning, said: “The Busway is not any longer, any wider or any higher than when the contract was awarded so it is clearly unacceptable that BAM Nuttall have taken two years longer than they should to build the route. Residents and everyone at the council would have rightly expected to see buses running a long while ago, but the contractor’s delays have directly resulted in £10m in damages being stripped from the firm.
“Although the timescale for BAM Nuttall completing the contract is in their hands, I would like to reassure people that the council has plans in place to get the route open as soon as possible once they finally achieve that. Clearly correcting the defective work is part of this process, which will take a number of weeks.”
Outstanding issues to be addressed
The council has identified five issues that it wants addressed on the St Ives to Cambridge section of the Busway. These are:
- Maintenance track – some areas of the track have been built at too low level which means rain water has collected and the maintenance track is flooded, the council claims. It wants these areas of the track to be raised without affecting the flood balance in the area.
- Beam expansion gaps – the council wants BAM Nuttall to show that the gaps between the beams will allow for expansion of the beams during periods of hot weather while giving a smooth ride for passengers.
- Foundations – the council wants assurance about the use of shallow pad foundations on some short sections of track, where deeper piled foundations were originally planned. It wants to see calculations to show that the track will not move over time reducing the ride quality.
- St Ives Park & Ride car park – the car park has been built with less than the specified gradient, it is claimed, and water is ponding on the surface of the car park.
- River Great Ouse Viaduct – the council says that rain water is leaking through an unsealed expansion joint onto the steel below.
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