Cambridge guided bus cost tops �180m - ‘give us back our �45m,’ council demands
THE estimated cost of building the guided busway has reached about �181million, Cambridgeshire County Council admitted.
But senior councillors are still maintaining that Council Tax payers will not have to stump up a penny more for construction than the maximum expected when the project started five years ago.
Contractor BAM Nuttall’s latest estimate of the cost of building the 25-km two-part guideway has reached �151million, excluding about �30m spent on buying land for the project and CCC’s own costs.
The construction target price – reduced when CCC removed park-and-ride buildings at St Ives and Longstanton and a kiss-and-ride facility at Swavesey from the contract two years ago – is about �86.5m. It puts the project �65m over budget.
The cost overrun, according to the CCC’s interpretation of the contract, is shared between BAM and the council, but CCC says its exposure is limited to �5m. The county council expects to get �45m back from the contractor – other money has been withheld because of late delivery of the busway, which was to have been opened in April 2009.
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The latest figures were revealed by County Councillor Roy Pegram, cabinet member for growth, infrastructure and strategic planning, who said: “The current forecast of the actual cost of constructing the scheme from BAM Nuttall is �151m. Non-contractual costs are currently forecast at �29.7m. The addition of these two gives a total of �180.7m.”
But the final figures would inevitably be different, he said.
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