St Ives to Cambridge guided busway defects checklist update

Thursday, May 6, 2010
8:00 AM

THE six defects that have delayed the handing over – and the opening – of the northern section of the Guided Busway are moving closer to completion. But until they are completed The Hunts Post will be printing its new checklist each week to show readers p

THE six defects that have delayed the handing over - and the opening - of the northern section of the Guided Busway are moving closer to completion.

But until they are completed The Hunts Post will be printing its new checklist each week to show readers progress - or lack of it - on finishing the project.

Cambridgeshire County Council is adamant that the six defects will have to be repaired by its contractor BAM Nuttall before it will accept the St Ives to Cambridge section.

It fears that accepting the project before the defects are corrected would have an impact later on and will eat up taxpayers' money in maintenance costs.

CCC said this week that Nuttall had moved forward with some of the work.

It has finalised plans for the testing required to check the track's foundations and has designed a solution to stop water pouring onto the steelwork holding up the viaduct over the River Great Ouse.

Bob Menzies, CCC's head of busway delivery, said: "It is good news the contractor has confirmed their plans to carry out the necessary testing as we need them to show the foundations are robust and the track will continue to give a smooth ride for passengers over time.

"BAM Nuttall only need to test soil conditions on some short section of the track where we need confirmation the foundations they have used are appropriate. The vast majority of the track has already been signed off.

"As we have always said, it may be a case that the tests show the foundations are fine and no work will be needed.

"We will know for certain once the contractor has completed the tests and calculations."

Some preliminary work has also been carried out on the risk assessment and cycle track (see checklist), but as yet none of the six defects have yet been fully rectified.

Nuttall has imposed a deadline on itself to finish all the work - a deadline which should allow the handover of the northern section by around mid-June.

The busway, which is more than a year overdue, is expected to cost about £160million against a budget of £116.2million.

The division of the overspend will be the subject of a court case once the overall project, including the southern section, is finished - likely to be some time next year.

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