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15
Jul
Only way to avoid Kex Gill cost risk is not to do the scheme, says council leader
North Yorkshire Council leader Carl Les has said the only way the local authority could have avoided the risk of spiralling costs on the A59 road realignment at Kex Gill is to not have done the scheme.
The council has embarked on its biggest ever capital investment programme on the landslip-prone, key east-west route linking Harrogate and Skipton.
But it revealed in May the cost had increased by £13.7 million from £68.8 million to £82.5 million.
The increase will fall on local council taxpayers because of the terms of the contract.
Under the deal, the Department for Transport awarded a fixed sum of £56.1 million and the council contributed £12.7 million.
A drainage pond being created at Kex Gill.
But the contract stipulated the council was responsible for any price rise, which meant it had to stump up the £13.7 million increase — taking the total paid by local council taxpayers to £26.4 million.
The council has also warned the cost could increase further.
Harrogate businessman Steven Baines asked Cllr Les what the council could do to “ensure contracts are properly put together so we don’t have these issues” at a debate organised by Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce at the Great Yorkshire Show last week.
Cllr Les, who was on the panel, replied:
The frustrating thing about government contracts is that all of the risk goes on the local authority.
Government says ‘you’ve got a scheme that’s going to cost you, say, £70 million. We will give you £50 million, you’ve got the risk of the £20 million and if there is an overspend it gets added on to your risk. The thing that you can do to mitigate that is not do the project. But we have been waiting for improvements to the A59 for years and years and years and I think we have to just go ahead and bite the bullet and get the scheme done.
It is unfortunate that costs are rising but we have to manage that the best we can. I have to tell you, even though there is an overspend it’s not as big as the contractors were saying that they wanted because of the things that they found once they actually started to do the work. So we have managed that overspend as best we can.
Cllr Malcolm Taylor, the council's executive member for highways, revealed in a report ahead of Wednesday's full council meeting that the new road was on track to open in June next year.
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