Yesterday, the 27th November 2010 was a great day. My first grandson Ollie was born. A fine healthy 7lb 8oz boy. It feels like something has changed. Perhaps its time to start to hand on the baton to the next generation.
We all wish Tessa and Jamie the very best of happiness with Ollie.
I come from a business background and have had to defend my own company robustly on occasions in the past. But BAM Nuttall seem to be trying to rewrite history and believing their own story. I can accept they may have got it wrong, might have under bid the work, might have taken on too much but I can’t accept what they are saying now. They are taking the council and the people of Cambridgeshire as fools and that is not good enough.
Council leaders have described statements made by BAM Nuttall as laughable as the contractor’s Chief Executive Steve Fox has said the company needs to be told how to fix defective work on the Busway. Defective works include parts of a cycleway that have been built in a drainage ditch so they flood and are impassable for more than half the year, a car park that has been built with a gradient that does not conform with national standards so puddles form when it rains and a leaky bridge.
The latest interview given by Steve Fox where he talked about the notified defects and said” the Council has not clearly demonstrated that they are defects” and “if you tell us what to do we’ll even see if we can do it for you “. The Council has clearly indicated to BAM Nuttall why the works are defective and has even given the contractor solutions to deal with the problems. In addition BAM Nuttall told the people of Cambridgeshire in a public statement in April that it was working towards rectifying the six defects.
Any work that does not meet the standards set in the contract is documented by an independent Project Manager and notified to BAM Nuttall and the County Council. The contractor is then responsible for correcting defective work, even if they disagree with the independent assessment. Despite the public statement in April the contractors have made no meaningful progress and are now refusing to correct some defects without being instructed to do so – an order that means paying more to the contractor to correct defective work they built.
The Council has been clear that it is not prepared to accept the route on a ‘sold as seen’ basis with outstanding liabilities. Opening the route before the defects are corrected would also mean it would need to close again for the work to be carried out.
Bus operator want outstanding defects that are stopping buses running between St Ives and Cambridge fixed before the Guided Busway opens so the track does not close again for corrections. But bus operators also reiterated that the outstanding defects that are stopping buses running on the route from St Ives to Cambridge must be rectified before beginning to run services for passengers.
Stagecoach has invested over £3 million in some of the most environmentally friendly buses as we are confident the route will be well used by passengers. But these buses have not been able to be put in use on the route as yet. The parts of the track we have tested so far are of a good standard. BAM Nuttall will continue to be deducted damages of almost £14,000 a day for late delivery until they complete the route. So far over £8 million has been deducted by the Council in damages.
Let us hope we are making progress. With the lost of the A14 improvements the guided busway is even more important. Buses have completed the first trial run on the final stretch of the Busway track through Trumpington Cutting – which means buses have now run on every section of the route. The first buses have run on the final stretch of the southern section, but there is still work for BAM Nuttall to complete before the route can be handed over to the Council. Buses also carried out preliminary tests on new traffic signals in Trumpington Cutting where buses will switch onto a section of single track guideway.
The Busway is expected to be handed over to the Council in mid-January when the contractors should have completed all the work. BAM Nuttall then has four weeks under the terms of the contract to fix all the notified defects on the project, including the six outstanding issues on the northern section of the route between St Ives and Cambridge. Council bosses are already making plans to fix the defects that have been stopping the Busway from St Ives to Cambridge opening after BAM Nuttall have had the four weeks they are allowed. The cost of rectifying defects will be charged to the contractor. BAM Nuttall was due to complete both sections of the Busway in February 2009 and the Council has deducted damages almost £14,000 each day – a total in excess of £8.3 million so far.
Good news. A fine piece of investment to our infrastructure. A new £25 million road which will link major new developments and the internationally recognised Addenbrooke’s Hospital directly to Trumpington / M11, opened last month. The road provides a vital link to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) which is home to Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals as well as research and teaching partners including the MRC, CRUK and the University of Cambridge. It will also help with the expansion of CBC into an international centre for patient care, biomedical research and healthcare education and will unlock land for major housing developments in the area around Clay Farm and Glebe Farm.
Cambridgeshire libraries are among the first in the country to work with other authorities to protect services and make savings. Plans are progressing to join with four other councils in the East to save up to £500,000 by sharing services. This is part of the Library Service Review. In-depth investigations into a range of options from forming a trust to using more volunteers are also to be carried out.
The results will be reported back in January with final proposals about the future shape of library services. The County Council needs to make a £2.2 million reduction (almost 30%) in its Library Service budget over the next three years. Public engagement activity launched this summer has put communities at the heart of transforming library services. Some 4,000 people have responded, and a full report of the public consultation will be published in November with the findings used and incorporated into options to be considered in January.
Everyone is being encouraged to express their views on the draft three year Sustainable Community Strategy that is now available on line at; https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NR6JLY8
In addition, there is a wiki for the draft vision, where people can comment upon and make changes to the draft http://sustainable-community-strategy.wikispaces.com/
The survey and the wiki are publicised at www.scambs.gov.uk/lsp and will also shortly be available at www.cambridge.gov.uk/cambridgelsp
Both the survey and the wiki will remain open until 31 December 2010.
Council tax bills will be frozen next year – as a result of a deal struck in the Spending Review. With the Treasury agreeing to set aside an extra £650 million all councils will be able to freeze bills next year – meaning local taxpayers living in an average Band D home in England could save up to £70. Hard working families and pensioners have seen their council tax bills more than double since 1997. But the new Government is standing up for hard-pressed local residents, providing special funding to help councils freeze their bills next year.
Further financial freedoms announced for councils will mean they can better protect frontline services like rubbish collections and care for the elderly. The new Government has already stopped the council tax revaluation which would have lead to higher council tax bills over this Parliament for many families. A new grant scheme will be open to all authorities, including police and fire authorities, which decide to freeze their council tax next year. If they do, they will receive additional funding in 2011-12, equivalent to raising their 2010-11 council tax by 2.5 per cent.
Many local residents, the business community and I have been dismayed at the recent announcement of the cancellation of the proposed A14 Ellington to Fen Ditton Scheme. We need urgent action to explore an alternative scheme to solve the acute problems. The CHUMMS study made it clear that a multi modal solution is needed for this transport corridor; Guided Busway, rail improvements on the Felixstowe to Nuneaton route and improvements to the A14. The first two of these are well underway and of course efforts to increase the share of movement by public transport and on rail must continue. But the road is the missing piece.
The A14 provides an essential corridor for both people and freight and links the east coast ports with the Midlands and the North. The Ellington to Girton section is of particular importance. In addition to its east-west function, it also links the north and midlands with Stansted and London and a wide range of destinations in the South East. As such, it serves a vital local, regional, national and indeed international function. The cancellation of the A14 Scheme puts at risk the very issues that we are all trying to promote – sustainable economic growth and development. It is intrinsically linked to the delivery of the major new development at Northstowe which is a key element of the plans of this area to realise its economic potential.
All of the key stakeholders, public and private sector, are clear that something must be done to overcome the problems. Immediate action is needed to address the pressing problems of safety and delay on the A14, and separately to ensure that some of the major development sites around Cambridge that already have planning permission can go ahead. I would like to emphasise that the status quo is unacceptable for all of us, locally, regionally, and nationally. Something must be done and soon. For safety reasons, for economic growth, for housing growth.
