Bridge opening hold- up ‘ known for five months’
The new Forth crossing will now open five months later than scheduled due to adverse weather. spokesman Neil Bibby said: “The possibility of a delay appears to have been known for quite some time.
“If ministers and TS didn’t know this then either they weren’t being properly informed or they weren’t keeping a check on progress.“
The Forth Crossing Bridge Constructors ( FCBC) has told The Sunday Post the project was behind schedule at the turn of the year and told local MSPs this information was passed on to TS.
In the same briefing FCBC revealed it was three to four weeks behind schedule at the end of March, but still felt they could make up the time.
The consortium also revealed how it had used up all “unallocated float” – the amount of time a task can be delayed without causing delay to the completion date – by September last year.
This meant it had no slack, other than the built- in contingency time, to work with and a new plan had to be drawn up to try to meet the December 2016 target.
It is believed FCBC has been severely hit by the cost of the bridge delays, which will not be met by the taxpayer, and will also face financial penalties if the contractual completion date – first revealed last week – of June 2017 is not met.
Edinburgh West MSP Alex Cole- Hamilton said: “There is still a lot about this that doesn’t add up and I will be pressing for one of the Holyrood committees to take this on and dig deeper.”
A FCBC spokesman said: “FCBC knew that it was behind schedule at the turn of the year but was still confident at this point that it could turn things round given favourable weather.”
A TS spokesman said: “Neither FCBC nor TS has ever tried to mislead anyone. If FCBC continued to believe the end- of- year target was achievable and was working towards that – with continued challenge from TS – then it was not in the project’s interest for TS to undermine FCBC’s efforts by publicly stating the project was not going to meet the target date.”