THE guided busway viaduct over the River Great Ouse between St Ives and Fenstanton will be closed for the next four weeks, as contractor BAM Nuttall does snagging work it accepts needs doing.

THE guided busway viaduct over the River Great Ouse between St Ives and Fenstanton will be closed for the next four weeks, as contractor BAM Nuttall does snagging work it accepts needs doing.

As the final 15 metre-long beam of the guideway is laid on the southern section to Trumpington and penalties for late delivery of the project top �8million, the contractor has closed the viaduct to replace a sub-standard waterproofing layer, Cambridgeshire County Council said yesterday (Tuesday).

“We were not happy with the waterproofing layer BAM Nuttall Limited (BNL) had put on the viaduct, as it didn’t meet the required standards,” a spokesman explained.

“As a result, it has been on BNLs snagging list for quite some time and they are now carrying the work out. The warning signs have been put up as people have got used to walking on the site when work has not been taking place.”

It is one of the sites at which the county council, sponsor of the supposedly-�116million scheme that is likely to cost �160m, would like the contractor to do major rectification work – in this instance to install expansion joints in the bridge beams.

In the expectation that six notified defects on the northern section near St Ives will not be rectified before BAM leaves the project and in a bid to prevent further delays to the project – which should have opened in April 2009, but will be at least two years late – the council has begun inspecting those parts of the work done so far that it expects to find satisfactory.

The contractor will still have to certify that the work has been carried out to the required standard on the world’s longest busway, just over 25km of concrete guideway.