New bypass cost figures - going off the rails on a gravy train

Remember when we told you back in March that the deferral of the bypass funding would still entail costs of £1.1 million over the next 7 years?

Well the Highways Agency have now topped that. Yesterday saw a reply in Parliament to this question placed by the Shadow Transport Minister, Robert Goodwill MP:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport with reference to the answer of 13 November 2008, Official Report, columns 1286-87W, on the Longdendale bypass, what costs have been incurred in connection with the A57/A628 Mottram to Tintwistle bypass since 13 November 2008.

Now you'll remember that 13th November 2008 was the last time Goodwill made enquiries about the cost of the scheme, which then stood at £16 million. The reply, forthcoming from Paul Clark MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, is gobsmacking:

For the period of 13 November 2008 to 30 April 2009, the A57/A628 Mottram to Tintwistle bypass scheme has incurred costs of approximately £1,176,000.

Working it out, that's 167 days (just under 6 months) - so the costs incurred since then have been £7,041.92 per day. And in the second part of his answer, Clark reveals what this has been spent on:

The costs include general project management, preparation for closure of the Public Inquiry, responding to general inquiries, project governance, staff costs, costs associated with the contract and finalising documents for the postponement of the project.

It seems to us that the phrase 'preparation for the closure of the Public Inquiry' is a bit of an abstract concept. After all, the Inspector has made it look like he has tried his best to bring the things to a close, and the Highways Agency have ignored it. Clearly the Gravy Train has no brakes, and the Government is in no mood to derail it. 

When one considers the announcements made in the Budget two weeks ago, and all the speculation regarding possible cuts to all kinds of budgets, it beggars belief that this road to nowhere is still trundling along, costing you and I nearly £300 for each hour that passes.

EXCLUSIVE: Public Inquiry costs now stand at £16 million

**UPDATE: the MEN, and both the Glossop & Tameside Advertiser as well as the Glossop Chronicle are now carrying this story**

We report on an interesting question raised in Parliament on Thursday. Robert Goodwill MP  - the Shadow Transport Minister - asked the following:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the Longdendale bypass public inquiry commenced; for how many days the inquiry has sat; and what the estimated cost is of the Longdendale bypass public inquiry process

The answer (from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Paul Clark MP PPS and not the DfT which seems odd, presumably Adonis has better things to do) told us the dates and times most of us anoraks know, but then tagged the costs of the Public Inquiry on the end - and they apparently now stand at £16 million. You may remember that we covered a similar line of questioning from Goodwill in Parliament in May with the total then standing at £15 million, and so it seems 6 months later, the PI (such as it exists and does anything useful) has eaten up another £1 million of taxpayer's money. That's £39,000 per week.

Now this has the unfortunate effect of putting our Bypass cost counter (which you'll find at the top of the left-hand column) more than a little ahead of the official information, but we still stand by our line that until we have a proper breakdown, it will remain unadjusted.

Either way, that's still a hell of a lot of money for absolutely bugger all. And it's only going to get ever more expensive...

EXCLUSIVE: Bypass costs rise by between 20% - 70%

We have an exclusive here for you today: hot on the heels of the recent announcement that the Glossop Spur costs have risen by 54%, the Highways Agency has revealed that the cost of building the A628 Bypass have risen significantly.

This document outlines cost estimates on all major road schemes. The A628 Bypass comes in at between £223 million (minimum) and £315 million (maximum). This is an increase of between 21% to 71% on the costs increases announced in March 2007 in the Nichols Report (£184 million), and an increase of between 200% to 283% on the figures from 2003 (£90 million).

It's clear these costs are on a huge escalator, and cannot prove sustainable.

EXCLUSIVE: Glossop Spur costs rise by 54%

Exclusive news courtesy of the Campaign for Better Transport and trailed in today's Guardian. The cost of road schemes are going through the roof, and the Longdendale Bypass - or in this case the Glossop Spur is no exception.

If you read page 3 of this table (opens PDF), you'll see that the original estimated cost of the Glossop Spur was £7.18 million. That's now risen to £11.07 million - a 54% increase since December 2000.

However, worryingly for Roy Oldham and Tameside MBC, the currently agreed Department for Transport contribution remains at £7.18 million.

How will Roy & Co. find the money in these times of Financial crisis?

Deal, or no deal?

The ongoing issue of the costs of the Longdendale Bypass was raised in the House of Commons yesterday.

Answering questions on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport Ruth Kelly, the Parliamentary Under Secretary Tom Harris revealed the following (emphasis added):

The A57/A628 Mottram Tintwistle bypass public inquiry started in June 2007. Since award of contract in August 2004 the scheme has incurred costs of £15,000,000. This includes design costs for the scheme, publication of draft orders, preparation and publication of the environmental statement, traffic modelling, legal costs, Highways Agency staff costs and the public inquiry. The specific costs for the public inquiry itself are not recorded separately.

Naturally, we're slightly suspicious about such a nice round figure like that. But if we accept that it's accurate, then it means that £1.2 million has been spent in the last 7 months. It's also way behind our counter which you'll find at the top of this blog, which was based upon the cost accruals in the latest period for which data was available. We may have to adjust it, as we promised we would, but in the meantime, we'll prefer to await the release of proper fully-documented information.

There's not really much else left to say that hasn't been said before, so perhaps we should await the obligatory press articles which will follow, much as Roy Oldham awaits the call from the banker...

No deal methinks.

The case of the £13.7 million and the Freedom of Information request...

Part two of the post we promised over a week ago now follows (part one is here).

Anyone who has followed the Public Inquiry (PI) will know that one individual has been as tenacious as a terrier in his fight to uncover all of the sleaze, lies and obfuscation surrounding the bypass. John Hall gave us the lowdown on his attempts to get the figures from the Highways Agency in his own words:

1. I forwarded a FOI (Freedom of Information) request to the DfT (Department for Transport) on 7th November 2007.

2. After 10 days it was referred to the HA (Highways Agency) Manchester.

3. The HA tried to put me off by stating my request would cost too much and take up too much important time for them and asked me doctor my FOI to reduce its content.

4. I played their game and stipulated I wanted ALL communications between the DfT and HA between February 2007 and October 2007.

5. I received a response from the HA dated 21st December with the breakdown of the costs of the preparation and promotion of the PI evidence they submitted.

6. The letter which accompanied the page of costs is not the one on the HA website or the Persona Associates website but although it has no name and address, it refers to another objector's (A) FOI request submitted on November 7th. This is not accurate because I know that objector (A) never sought this FOI request and knew nothing of it.

7. Another objector (B) says they submitted a similar FOI request in October, but received the same December 21st HA response to themselves with the same reference number as objector (B) and acknowledging 'their request of November 7th'. How this could happen is anyone's guess but something doesn't ring true.

8. My letter dated 21st December 2007 from the HA includes the costs data we now all know. HOWEVER the letter states that my request for all correspondence & emails between the DfT and HA is being considered as inappropriate and as 'not being in the Public Interest' and will be answered in late January 2008.

9. The FOI Commissioner has now received all documents, emails etc relating to my November 7th 2007 request because (a) my request was not actioned within the appropriate statutory time limit, (b) has still not been fully dealt with, and because (c) the full information I require, other than the costs already received, is vitally important evidence required for the Public Inquiry. Furthermore, it "is" of Public Interest and I believe that the info the DfT/HA are now attempting to hide would be instrumental in proving duplicity and manipulations of a Public Inquiry instigated by the DfT. I now await the outcome of Information Commissioner's investigation and deliberations, but I will be fighting this 100% to get this important evidence to present to the Inspector.

So there you have it. Both the Inquiry and the blog will hear a lot more from John over the coming months.

Channel M on the £13 million: Wot no Mike Flynn?

Channel M have another of their reports on the bypass. They've found Tintwistle this time, rather than Brookfield in Glossop. But it's strange they haven't talked to Mike Flynn, and there's no statements from him. Is he camera shy? or are they a bit fed up of the usual soundbites he provides? Come on Mike, send us an email, let us know.

The bypass is costing £660,000 per month, and counting...

Well, we've been pipped to the post with this one. After scanning the Highways Agency website, as well as the Public Inquiry website, we became aware of some Freedom of Information releases which talked about an increase in costs. But there are so many things to write about at the moment, that we put it on hold for another night.

So the MEN have the scoop for a change. Today's big news is the massively escalating costs of the bypass.

Quoting the £13,782,505.24* figure is one thing, but there are other ways of looking at numbers. The Freedom of Info releases are here, here and here (all open PDFs), but for those who would like us to extrapolate, here is the info they provided:



The figures show the differing amounts paid to those involved on working on the bypass, for specific time periods. I have added the time periods in months. When you produce an average of those periods to produce monthly figures, this is what you get:

August 2004-January 2006 - £408,861.43 per month
February 2006-February 2007 - £309,710.17 per month
February 2007-June 2007 - £489,048.06 per month
June 2007-October 2007 - £658,956.50 per month

So the latter period has been the most costly. The Bypass is now costing over £150,000 each week. Roy Oldham's annual salary as Council leader was reported to be more than £40,000 just over 2 years ago - so the bypass is costing us a Roy Oldham every other day. Surely that's food for thought even for the most craven pro-bypass supporter (unless you happen to be related and invited to all the junkets, eh Mike Flynn)?

And if you read the comments on the MEN website, it's all our fault. Well boo hoo - that's fine with me. Because driving up the costs - by fair means or foul - kills road schemes. It is a legitimate tactic as far as we're concerned. And it is working.

In part two of this feature, we will reveal how this Freedom of Information release came about.

**Update, 14/01/2008. We've now rigged up a little counter to show the estimated costs so far. This little widget is based on the £13,782,505.24 figure being relevant from 31st October 2007 and that costs are accruing at the rate we calculated. It can be adjusted accordingly, but in the meantime will count down here for the forseeable future reminding people what a total rip-off this white elephant is!**

*if you were writing a cheque, you'd have to scribble "thirteen million, seven hundred and eighty-two thousand, five hundred and five pounds, twenty-four pence" onto the two lines they provide - see the above image for an idea