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Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee 15 March 2011

15 Mar 2011 · S3 · Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee

Item of business

Forth Crossing Project

David Climie Watch on SPTV

On the legislative side, things have progressed exactly as we had planned. The stage 3 vote took place in December and the Forth Crossing Bill was passed. Royal assent followed in January. The Forth Crossing Act 2011 gave us the powers to start moving forward with land acquisition and all the issues associated with that. Everything is proceeding exactly to plan. We have made the initial notices in preparation for the general vesting declaration to ensure that the land will be available for the project, and we are continuing negotiations for voluntary acquisition of various properties around the project.On the procurement side, we completed the dialogue period on the principal contract in December 2010. The fact that we received the outline proposals from both bidders at the beginning of November gave us the opportunity to review them to ensure that they were in line with what we expected and that they would meet the overall requirements of the project. We were able to have significant dialogue with the bidders to resolve any concerns that we had about their outline proposals and the way in which they were progressing. That meant that we could ensure that there would be no surprises in the tender returns that came in on 28 January following the final invitation to tender, which went out, as planned, on 17 December.When the tenders came back, they were large, as you would expect, given the detail of the proposals. We have been going through the procedure to evaluate them. Stage 1 was to evaluate the technical and quality sides of things to ensure that both tenders were fully compliant with our requirements and that they both met the technical and quality thresholds so that we could proceed with opening the prices. I am pleased to report that both the tenders that we received were of very high quality and that both met our technical criteria. We are now in the final stages of tender evaluation, on which we expect to report very shortly.The junction 1A and Fife intelligent transport system contracts—the two smaller contracts—are also proceeding on track. The final invitation to tender for the Fife ITS contract was issued on 25 February and we are due to receive the tenders on 25 March. We will issue the final invitation to tender for the junction 1A contract in early April and the tenders will be returned on 12 May. Both are on track to be awarded in the summer, which, again, is in line with the programme that we indicated when we spoke to you last September.One of the key things that we have moved forward with is resolving the final contract terms and conditions. We negotiated those with both bidders for the principal contract, because we wanted to ensure that we had negotiated the final contract in advance of receiving the tenders. We therefore do not have to go into final negotiations on the contract, because both bidders have confirmed that they are prepared to enter into the contract in its current form. That includes the provision of bonds and parent company guarantees as appropriate. All the negotiation on the principal contract was completed in advance of our receiving the tenders.One or two minor contracts have been proceeding. The long sea outfall works on the south side of the Forth have been completed. The new radar station on the north side of the Forth is under construction and will be operational in May, in advance of the principal contract works. In general, everything has proceeded on track and there have been no significant problems or delays to the plan.

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Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee 15 March 2011

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