Reason/ Options Considered: The contract was originally intended to run for a total of 132 weeks from 23 June 2006 for delivery by 1st January 2009. The intention at the time of letting the contract was to open both the northern (St Ives to Cambridge) and southern (Cambridge rail station to Addenbrooke's Hospital and the Trumpington Park and Ride site) sections at the same time with the programme from the contractor reflecting this. Since the contract was let, it has become increasingly clear that delays in scheme delivery have been building up and the contractor has been falling behind programme.
The Council has worked with the contractor initially to try to speed up delivery by agreeing a re-phasing of the works so the contractor could focus on delivery of the northern section in the hope that at least part of the overall scheme could be made available for public use. Since then, a number of opening dates have been announced by the Council and, because the works on site have not been completed, these have not been met.
Public interest in when the scheme will open and particularly, what are the issues between the Council and the contactor has been mounting over this time. The Council has worked hard to try to resolve the outstanding issues with the contractor, but at the time of writing the report this had been without success. It was noted the scheme was now substantially complete, but the remaining works to be carried out were preventing it from coming into use and were in the Council's view, the responsibility of BNL. The report detailed the progress and the action being taken to try to resolve the specific outstanding issues in the northern sections in relation to the following:
The River Great Ouse Viaduct
The St Ives Park and Ride Site
The maintenance track
The Guideway foundations
The gaps between the guideway beams
The issue of rubber tyre infill between guideway sections.
There was also a section in the report on the progress in the southern section.
An oral update at the meeting included the Cabinet Member for Growth, Infrastructure and Strategic Planning reading out with minor changes a prepared joint statement which had been agreed between the County Council and BAM Nuttall following further meetings which had taken place since the publication of the report and was as follows:
“Senior staff from Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) and Bam Nuttall Ltd (BNL) have met to consider further the outstanding issues holding up completion of the northern section of the guideway as set out in the report to CCC Cabinet being considered today.
The meeting was productive and actions have been agreed by both parties, commencing with early technical meetings this week, which if carried through, should lead to the resolution of the issues.
Both parties have agreed that these actions will be monitored by the respective chief executives over the next five days ahead of a further senior level meeting at the end of the month.
I would point out that one of the issues is the Busway’s maintenance track that is currently under water in some areas.
CCC and BNL have agreed that these areas need to be raised, a process that will require liaison with the Environment Agency because of flood storage issues in the flood plain that the maintenance track runs across. The good news is that any work on this could be carried out in the summer, and therefore will not delay the opening of the Busway.
CCC and BAM Nuttall wish to see the Busway operational as soon as possible and have agreed to use the procedures laid out in the contract to progress the outstanding issues.
Provided there is the expected progress during the coming weeks, both parties are hopeful that it will be possible to indicate by the middle of April the target date for trialling and then operating the Busway.
Cambridgeshire County Council and BAM Nuttall Limited remain resolutely of the view that once completed the Busway will provide the high quality, well used, successful and reliable service we always anticipated. “
A change for clarification was included in respect of paragraph 2.2 which will be set out in the minutes. |