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16
Apr
‘Beggars belief’: Whitehall emails lay bare true cost of Harrogate Station Gateway
Just 39% of the cost of the Harrogate Station Gateway scheme will be spent on construction, emails discovered by the Stray Ferret reveal.
The emails also show a total of 22% of the scheme’s costs are being spent on consultants.
The figures were revealed in more than 100 pages of correspondence between Whitehall officials and North Yorkshire Council following a freedom of information request.
The findings have heightened concerns about the scheme as the battle on whether it proceeds heads to the High Court next week.
We asked the Department for Transport for correspondence between it and the North Yorkshire Council officials overseeing the Gateway — economic and regeneration project manager Matt Roberts, head of major projects and infrastructure Richard Binks, and corporate director Karl Battersby.
Over the next three days, we will publish a series of findings about the controversial scheme, starting today with the breakdown of costs.
The overall cost has continued to rise even though the scheme was reduced in size — or ‘descoped’ — last year, when the council admitted that its original proposals, which included the part-pedestrianisation of James Street and reducing a section of Station Parade to a single lane, were flawed.
The findings include:
- The overall cost of the scheme has risen to £12,549,449 following the Tory council’s successful bid to the Labour-run North Yorkshire mayor’s office for an additional £500,000 to improve traffic lights. The council is also considering allocating more funds to the scheme from another gateway project it is overseeing in Skipton.
- A breakdown of project costs reveals just £4,830,000 is allocated to ‘direct construction’, which includes sums for ‘contractor risk’ and ‘contingency’. This equates to 39% of the overall cost.
- Canadian consultancy WSP, which drew up the designs, is allocated £2,791,728, which equates to 22% of the overall cost.
- A further £1,666,221 is set aside for ‘prelims, overheads and profit’ while utility costs are put at £700,000.
The council’s full breakdown of costs is shown below.
The council's breakdown of costs.
The gateway, which would see major changes to Station Parade, Station Square and the One Arch pedestrian tunnel, has been hailed by Councillor Keane Duncan as the biggest investment in Harrogate town centre for 30 years.
But the business group Get Away, which opposes the scheme in its current form, claims it will harm the town and has launched a legal challenge, which is due to be heard next week in Leeds.
Commenting on the Stray Ferret's findings, Get Away spokesperson Steven Baines said:
It beggars belief that the council is completely going against the wishes of the majority of the local business community who oppose the scheme.
David Waddington of Hornbeam Park Developments, which is part of Get Away, said:
In light of these revelations, serious questions now need to be asked of the Department for Transport and North Yorkshire Council. Why have costs risen when the scheme has been descoped? How can the council justify the primary consultant’s costs being more than half of the direct construction costs?
And why isn't the Department for Transport seriously questioning the scheme given now what we know, and at a time when the government is putting all departmental spending under huge scrutiny?
Council officials and Cllr Duncan (standing) discuss the scheme at a business meeting in Harrogate last year.
The council is overseeing gateway schemes in Harrogate, Skipton and Selby, which are funded mainly from the Department for Transport’s Transforming Cities Fund.
Asked why the Harrogate costs had risen so much, the council said in a statement:
The rising cost to deliver the scheme is due to redesigns in response to the original legal challenge, the three public consultations and inflation due to the length of the project this far. We can’t comment on unexpected costs before construction has started, hence factoring in a contingency.
We have been able to make savings on the Skipton scheme, mainly by using our own company NY Highways, which is more cost-effective than an external contractor. We are exploring the possibility of transferring funds to the Harrogate scheme if required.
Tomorrow we reveal why the gateway has been defined as 'poor value for money' by the Department for Transport.
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