Archived decisions

Contact: Syd Sadro, ext 6099 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 On 14 May 2002 the Executive Member for Environment agreed the capital allocation of £3 million for the Blackwater Valley Bus Service 1 Priority Route in Farnborough. This report details additional costs expected to be incurred with the completion of the scheme and requests that this Committee scrutinises the detailed decisions made which led to these additional costs.

1.2 The Blackwater Valley Bus Service 1 Priority Route and A325 major maintenance scheme received support from the former North East Hampshire Transportation Strategy Panel on 26 September 2001 and the Environment Policy Review Committee on 17 September 2001 to proceed. On 14 May 2002 the Executive Member for Environment approved the capital allocation of £3 million. The scheme is now virtually complete but costs are expected to exceed this budget by an estimated £384,000.

1.3 The scheme incorporates carriageway maintenance work and is partly funded from developers' contributions. The agreed budget of £3 million for the project was divided up as follows:

(i) Capital Programme (Integrated Transport) £1,900,000;

(ii) Capital Programme (Maintenance) £400,000; and

(iii) developer funding of £700,000.

1.4 The additional funding required can be met by Local Transport Plan capital or increasing the amount of developer funding. Developer funding has already been secured as part of the development at Farnborough Business Park and does not affect schemes in the committed programme. A revised Capital Programme report will be submitted to the Executive Member for Environment in March and will recommend which funding option should be adopted when other spending profiles are clear.

1.5 A report on the Blackwater Valley Bus Service 1 Priority Route was submitted to the Executive Member for Environment on 10 February 2004, at which he requested that this Committee be asked to scrutinise the detailed decisions made which led to the revised forecast for the scheme going over the 10% variation limit of costs before he makes a decision.

2. Corporate Strategy

2.1 This project supports Aim 2 of the Corporate Strategy, Stewardship of the environment, by improving travel choices for all through the provision of bus lanes to ensure more reliable, attractive and accessible alternatives to the car to assist achieving an increase of 4% by 2005 in the number of bus passengers per year for local journeys.

3. Details

3.1 The four main areas of overspend are identified below:

(i) Disruption to work - £150,000; includes for acceleration of works over the railway bridge in order to limit the disruptive effects of the works on residents and traffic, general disruption to contract works, disruption due to uncharted services and changes to works sequence to carry out the most disruptive works to traffic during school holidays.

(ii) Increased fees for design and supervision of some £70,000. Additional resources were allocated to deal with large public interest in the scheme which resulted in some changes to the design. The dedicated website for the scheme generated a large volume of correspondence with the public.

(iii) An increase of some £80,000 in the costs of traffic signals over the original estimates as reported on 14 May 2002 to the Executive Member for Environment. It was revised following:

(a) the inclusion of a new Toucan crossing in Victoria Road;

(b) the upgrade of equipment at several Pelican crossings;

(c) to meet the new regulations for Puffin crossings; and

(d) costs for closed circuit television cameras for real-time traffic monitoring.

(iv) A contingency sum for the settlement of any contractual claims by the contractor.

3.2 Other areas of increased cost included:

(i) additional landscaping of the corridor as requested by Rushmoor Borough Council as partner to the project; and

(ii) changes to signs following a change in policy to allow taxis to use the bus lane.

Recommendation

That this Committee scrutinises and comments on the detailed decisions made which led to the revised forecast for the scheme going over the 10% variation limit of costs, before the Executive Member for Environment makes a decision.

8596/SS