Legal action inevitable over St Ives-Cambridge guided busway

AFTER reading letters about the Guided Busway from Roger Beaman and Trevor Lee last week I wanted to help answer their questions and make sure people had all the facts.

AFTER reading letters about the guided busway from Roger Beaman and Trevor Lee last week I wanted to help answer their questions and make sure people had all the facts.

Firstly, I have never said that BAM Nuttall will ‘roll over and play dead’ when it comes to repayment of the contractor’s overspend on the project. What I have said is that the contract is clear and states that the overspend falls to the contractor.

The independent legal advice we have taken means I am still confident of our position that the money will be repaid by BAM Nuttall. However, it is clear BAM Nuttall does not agree, and we have already said that legal action is inevitable.

In Trevor Lee’s letter he said that it was strange that BAM Nuttall had not yet ‘bent over backwards’ to complete the project with damages of almost �14,000 a day being imposed.

I share Trevor Lee’s frustrations, as everybody does. It is even more frustrating that the defects on the St Ives to Cambridge stretch of the route are relatively straightforward to rectify and would have cost BAM Nuttall far less to correct than the damages they have been deducted so far.

However, Cambridgeshire residents would not thank the council if we were to accept defective works, and the contractor has been sent a clear message either to get the work done or we will correct the work once the contract is completed – charging the costs to BAM Nuttall.

Councillor ROY PEGRAM

Cabinet Member, Cambridgeshire County Council

Shire Hall

Cambridge