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13
May
Kex Gill: Secret contingency fund set to push cost beyond £82.5 million
The cost of the A59 road realignment at Kex Gill looks set to go beyond £82.5 million after North Yorkshire Council today agreed to pump extra contingency funding into the scheme.
The cost has already risen from £68.8 million to £82.5 million due to the council having to pay compensation to contractors and consultants for issues such as delays and design changes.
But besides this £13.7 million increase, the council’s ruling Conservative executive also voted unanimously to commit an undisclosed sum of additional taxpayers’ money on further contingency funding to cover any more cost increases, such as weather delays.
Councillor Keane Duncan, the executive member for highways who has oversight of the scheme, indicated the contingency would be required when he told the meeting “there will likely be further costs”.
But he added “the value of the contingency is sensitive and it remains confidential at this time”.
In an impassioned defence of a project he described as “monumental”, Cllr Duncan said the new road would “end the misery of Kex Gill once and for all” and was on track to open in spring next year but the entire project was in “jeopardy” if extra funds weren’t committed.
He said:
It sounds very simple: it’s just four kilometres of new road but the reality is very different. This is the largest, the most ambitious highways project the council has ever carried out.
We are working in tough, very unforgiving terrain 900 feet above sea level in an area that’s very sensitive for wildlife. We were always aware of the immense and complex engineering challenge we were facing.
Landslip repairs taking place at Kex Gill in June 2024.
He added it had cost the council £6 million to keep the current road open following 15 landslips in the last two decades:
Every closure that we see here reminds us why this upgrade is so essential. Unless we act, we will see more closures and they are only going to become more costly and disruptive. Simply speaking, without the action we are taking, without this new road, the future of the A59 – this essential route that thousands of people rely on every day — is in jeopardy.
Of course, it’s extremely frustrating for us that we are now facing extra costs. These costs could not have been foreseen. They are not the council’s fault but the unfortunate reality is it’s us – the council and taxpayers – who are obliged to pick up these extra costs. A total just shy of £14 million so far.
We simply don’t have a choice if we want to protect this key east-west route into the future and free locals and visitors from the misery of repeat closures.
We are also honest that we expect there will likely to be further costs too. The good news is the underground works will soon be over. We will be working above ground and this is substantively less risky.
Today's executive meeting
‘We are not pushovers’
Cllr Duncan said the council “would like to assure taxpayers too that we are not pushovers”. He added:
We will continue to scrutinise every request for compensation robustly and have actually rejected a number of compensation requests outright. We are prepared to reject more in future. We will also seek to recoup costs from third parties where there is a case for this, but where there are extra costs to pay we ultimately have no choice but to pay.
The choice before us today then is not much of a choice at all. It’s either reject the release of the £11.7 million required, in effect halting this scheme that we know is so vitally important for safeguarding the A59. That means more landslips more disruption, more costs or we agree to release the £11.7 million costs.
Cllr Michael Harrison said the terms of the contract with the Department for Transport, which is the major funder, stipulated it would pay £56.1 million, but this sum was fixed and any additional costs would be borne by the council and taxpayers. He added:
We knew that and there was nothing we could do to avoid that other than not do the scheme.
One of the first increased costs was the fact that the major funder delayed on signing off on that funding which cost us money. There lies the start of this.
What is the Kex Gill scheme?
The A59 is the main route between Harrogate and Skipton.
The scheme at Kex Gill is the largest capital highway project ever undertaken by the former county council and now North Yorkshire Council.
It involves realigning four kilometres of the landslip-prone route, which has suffered 15 landslides in the last two decades at a cost of £6 million, according to the council.
The Department for Transport awarded £56.1 million, and the council initially contributed £12.7 million.
Construction work, which began in February 2023, comprises a 27.8 hectare working site, 12 new structures including two underpasses, walls and culverts, 4 km of new bridleways, 7 km of dry stone walls, 9 km of new drainage, the diversion of Hall Beck, planting 12,000 trees and shrubs, 12 km of utility diversions and reverting the existing A59 back to moorland. The report says work is ‘now just over halfway complete’,
Work to build the new road was supposed to take 113 weeks from January 2023 to March 2025. But the finish dates has been put back to June 2026, which is the cause of one of the compensation claims. Once the new road is built, contractors will then complete a second phase of work decommissioning the existing A59 and turning it back to moorland, which is not now due to finish until March 2027.
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