Derby orders audit as road cost mushrooms

ROADS

Derby City Council has asked an internal audit team to investigate an almost doubling of the cost of a road improvement scheme.

The A52 Wyvern transport improvement scheme features extra lanes near the Wyvern junctions, carriageway resurfacing, a new skip road, a signal-controlled crossroads, and a replacement pedestrian and cycle bridge. 

The project was expected to cost £14.9m when works commenced last October. But councillors heard last week that the likely final cost was now “in the order of £30m”, a figure that includes £2.2m of complementary works approved in March. 

Christine Durrant, Derby’s acting chief executive,  told councillors that, since construction began, “there have been very significant unforeseen cost increases in relation to the works carried out to date, and it is forecast that there will be further cost increases before the project is complete”. 

“To date, forecasts of additional costs that have been, or are very likely to be incurred, add up to £6.65m. These costs include a range of issues, but the more significant figures are associated with the night-time working on the A52, unforeseen ground conditions and delays in finalising the complex detailed design relating to the new footbridge.”

Durrant added: “The newly appointed [council] design team and [council] contract manager are working closely with the contractor, GallifordTry, to re-establish a realistic cost estimate for the scheme and to control and manage down these costs.”  

The scheme is being funded with the help of Local Growth Fund (£6.7m) and Highways England’s Growth and Housing Fund (£2.6m).

Councillors will receive a further report on the project in September.