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Sept 2024
Harrogate Station Gateway: Is council set to bin contractors and pay itself to do the scheme?
Harrogate businesses received the most comprehensive update on the £12.1 million Station Gateway all year on Tuesday night (September 3).
Five senior North Yorkshire Council officers and Cllr Keane Duncan, the Conservative transport chief with oversight of the scheme, gave a 30-minute presentation of what was described as the biggest change to Harrogate town centre for 30 years and then answered questions for about an hour.
The scheme will involve creating a bus lane on Lower Station Parade, a cycle lane on Station Parade and major changes to Station Square and the One Arch pedestrian tunnel.
The Stray Ferret published a live blog which summarised the key events at the joint Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce and Harrogate Business Improvement District meeting. You can read it here.
A south facing visual of how Station Parade will look.
Among the issues that emerged was that the council admitted it was considering appointing its own maintenance company NY Highways to undertake the work.
The council created NY Highways in 2021 and still owns it, which means it would effectively be commissioning itself.
This raised eyebrows because last year it appointed British construction firm Galliford Try, which has 3,300 staff and has undertaken projects such as the £350 million Queensferry Crossing in Scotland, on an Early Contractor Involvement basis for the design and planning stage. Firms employed on this basis often go on to be appointed for the construction phase.
Dropping Galliford Try for NY Highways, whose 250 staff are more used to filling in potholes and resurfacing roads than completing a project of this scale, would be something of a gamble.
There were also concerns about whether North Yorkshire taxpayers might be forced to bale out NY Highways if the costs of the gateway scheme continue to escalate.
Richard Binks (centre) alongside fellow council officers Tania Weston and Barrie Mason at this week's meeting.
Richard Binks, the council’s head of major projects and infrastructure, told the meeting the local authority expected to award the construction contract in the next couple of months and it was “essentially a two-horse race” between NY Highways and Galliford Try.
David Waddington, of property firm Hornbeam Park Developments, asked the council if it intended to undertake a competitive tendering process before appointing the contractor.
Mr Binks said:
At the moment we are in single partnership so it’s not an open market tender. We have one contractor and that’s Galliford Try. They are the company that we have the two-stage NEC (new engineering contract) contract with now. What we are exploring is a possibility of doing the work with our internal Teckal company called NY Highways.
A Teckal company is a local authority company exempt from competitive tender processes when it contracts with its public sector owners.
Mr Waddington questioned whether appointing the council-owned company would achieve “best value” for the scheme, especially as there could be a risk to taxpayers’ money. Mr Binks replied:
The contract will be priced and specified under the same terms and conditions, the same arrangements, the same design. There will be no difference in terms of scope and contractual procedures.
Cllr Duncan speaking at this month's business meeting in Harrogate.
Cllr Duncan added:
If we can use NY Highways to do the works and give better value than using Galliford Try that’s why we would do that. So this is all in pursuit of best value for the taxpayer.
Mr Binks added:
Essentially while we are in a two-stage contract arrangement with Galliford Try. There is a break clause in that contract where we can invoke that and we can engage our own contractor resource if we should choose. In terms of that competitive tension, it is essentially a two-horse race.
The Stray Ferret has asked the council whether other companies were given the chance to bid for the construction contract, and to confirm there would be no financial risk to taxpayers if NY Highways were appointed and costs increased.
With work now not due to start until April next year, the gateway saga is expected to rumble on for some time yet.
Look for further coverage in the coming days and use the comment section below to let us know your views.
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