Following the request from the Chair, Councillor Rice, for a report to be provided on the A13 Widening Project, the completion date and whether there were any budget implications for Thurrock Council in the current and subsequent financial years. Andy Millard, Director of Place, introduced the report by referring Members to the report that provided the introduction and background to the project, the complicating factors to the delay and cost issues with the A13 and the three significant issues which had impacted on the delivery of the scheme. Members were also referred to the Issues and Options which covered the programme review, current out turn forecast and budget implications.

Councillor Spillman questioned whether in hindsight if a proposal was now presented to Thurrock, would the Council still be in favour of going ahead or should the Council steer clear of such a project. Anna Eastgate, Assistant Director, Lower Thames Crossing, Place, agreed that the Council should not have steered clear of the project as Thurrock, the size of the authority, were capable of delivering projects on this scale and with the ambition of the borough we needed to make sure we were. That there was no single issue that had caused the issues, rather a number of circumstances including adapting existing infrastructure which carries greater risk.  Having been involved in the project for the last 10 months, Officers were confident that the Council had understood fully the challenges and risks that were being dealt with and the Council were fully and appropriately mitigating them as much as possible. Discussions had taken place with directors on what needed to be addressed on the commitments to large scale projects in the future and that was being implemented.  Further discussions were needed about the funding phasing on future schemes as the need to spend grants by particular deadlines was driving less than optimum decisions. Anna Eastgate stated during COVID-19 the delivery of the site remained open and that had mitigated some further cost and impacts of delivery and praised the contractors for working within such difficult circumstances, however any cost and delay to the scheme as a result of Covid-19 was still to be assessed.

Councillor C Kent asked what had been put in place and what lessons had been learnt to ensure that Thurrock did not end up in a similar scenario again. Councillor C Kent also questioned why had it taken so long for the amount of overspend to come out into the public domain and asked about the contracts. Andy Millard, reiterated that Thurrock Council needed to have the ambition to delivery projects of such a nature and in relation to this project there were significant benefits in terms of improving journey times and reliability and less pollution through the reduction in congestion and it was vital that the Council got those projects right. That lessons could be learnt from some of the issues that had come out of this particular project and some intensive work had been undertaken already but it was clear that the project must move forward and to take learnings from this project to avoid some of those issues happening again in the future. Anna Eastgate stated that in regards to lessons being learnt that some detailed interactive sessions had been carried out with officers across different departments of the Council that were responsible for delivering other projects, information and knowledge had been shared on particular issues and challenges working with particular contractors, addressing behaviours between parties, with a note being produced on how those concerns would be addressed going forward. That the work carried out had been positively received by everybody. In regards to having a plan in place for the cost and overspend, around the table sessions were taking place with team members across different departments to come up with options and ideas to explore the criteria that was set out in the report on page 144. That an action plan was being prepared to address these and would be overseen by directors. Anna Eastgate stated in regards to the time that it had taken for this information to come out in the public domain, the Council had undertaken a commercial review of cost and programme but it was essential  to have completed that exercise before information was shared in the public domain so that it was reliable.  That prior to COVID-19 there was confidence the revised full out turn forecast that had been arrived at was robust but unfortunately COVID-19 would alter this and the impact of that is unknown at this time. Anna Eastgate agreed that getting the information out in the public domain had taken some time but it was more important that genuine answers were given on the true position. In relation to contracts for this project, due to timescales, there was insufficient time to go to market for bespoke contracts and a framework had been used which only provided for separate design and build contracts.

Councillor Spillman questioned why there was not a wider strategic body in place with all the councils from South Essex to deal with the problems of the A13 in its entirety rather than Thurrock just dealing with the stretch of road on their own. Also stated that there were a lot of people benefiting from this scheme outside of Thurrock and questioned whether the Council were satisfied with the level of support received from central funds. Andy Millard stating that infrastructure be provided more effectively on a sub-regional basis was something that needed to be looked at going forward.

Councillor Spillman asked whether the mapping received from Essex County Council in particular to some of the utilities and how the road was planned had been a major problem that had resulted in significant extra costs. Anna Eastgate stated that some of the drawings were not reflective of what was on the ground and it was known that some utility companies did not know exactly where their assets were in the ground. That there were some concerns on the preliminary work undertaken resulting in different ground investigation reports and a need to rationalise and agree the information. There had been a combination of factors that been contributed to the issues with a number of reworks being undertaken on the designs of the structures and drainage.

Councillor Rice questioned how the Council would cope with the reported £41 million overspend. Sean Clark stated that the Council would be legally obliged to pay the contract that was in place but further work would be undertaken with those contractors to try and reduce those costs and to avoid any further escalation. Members were referred to paragraph 3.9 of the report and stated there were only three high level options available and would actively seek any further opportunities of grants that come through and look at partners in the private sector which would include those organisations that had given advice. Sean Clark stated that ultimately if the gap could not be closed completely through grants or funding contributions the Council would had to meet this through capital resources.

Councillor Potter referred to paragraph 3.2 of the report and questioned what the productivity percentage rate was at this current time. Anna Eastgate stated that currently it was operating at about 85% on the project. There was a plan to bring more of the contractor team back on the site and measures had been put in place to protect the workforce from COVID-19 and potentially back up to 90% / 95% of activity on site. 

Anna Eastgate referred to Councillor Rice’s comment on the £41 million overspend and corrected by saying that the forecast outturn was not £41 million at this current time the actual shortfall was £35 million.

Councillor Rice requested that this report be presented at this committee on a quarterly basis.

RESOLVED

1.         That the Standard and Audit Committee noted and commented on the report content.

2.         That the A13 Widening Project be scheduled onto the work programme to be presented at every quarterly meeting.