Taxpayers to dig for £20M for Liverpool Dock

[Passing Time]

23 minutes ago, John Wright said:

The contract will be a fixed price JCT/NEC or similar, standard. But there’ll be clauses allowing for price increases for delay caused by things outside the control of the parties ( covid, material price increases over a certain amount, unexpected extra work necessitated by unforeseen work ( strengthening of the dock walls on river side and dock side, voids, archaeology, and client instructed changes ). We know there has been archaeology, the walls have had to be strengthened to cope with scour, that was notified late, allegedly, by the steam packet, that’s a client variation.

Its a brownfield site, there will have been reports available to contractors before tender, but only so much can be discovered from surveys and exploration.

Its one of those things that, once you’ve committed, it’s open ended.

The real question for me is, once we were given notice to leave the pierhead berth, and Stena became unavailable, there was no real assessment of the need for Liverpool, or alternatives. Yes, we sailed a ferry to Holyhead and Mostyn to check berthing. But all possible ports are at capacity. Mostyn and Fleetwood aren’t available. So it was spend a fortune at Liverpool or focus solely on Heysham.

Half our English passenger traffic passes through Liverpool. All our freight through Heysham.

I can understand IoMGovernment wanting to own and control any new site in Liverpool. We’ve paid for a new landing stage twice in the last 50 years, never owned it, always paid landing charges, been held to ransom by MD&HB and then Peel Ports, and then turfed off because servicing cruise liners is more lucrative and cheaper.

a case of no lessons learned ever

[Happier diner]

6 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

a case of no lessons learned ever

Thats over simplistic but a valid point. It's all about preparation. On a project like this there would normally be a pre design phase where you gather information. This is key. For a dock it would be what's under the ground and what are you going to build. Then you get someone to design what you want to have. Then you go to tender based on the information you have gleaned from investigations and your design. 

Basically if your investigations turn out to be wrong and you provided it as information to the contractor and add to that your design is then inadequate and the contractor cannot work to it then that's when you get into pickles like this 

Yes, ultimately it's the DOIs ( or IOM gov) fault as they are accountable for it at the end of the day.

[asitis]

The whole sorry saga just identifies itself as public purse money, if it were private money, you can bet your bottom dollar things wouldn't be where they are now. A project run by people with no skin in the game is never going to be tightly controlled. Ahh well watch the fares rise exponentially !

[Derek Flint]

4 hours ago, John Wright said:

The contract will be a fixed price JCT/NEC or similar, standard. But there’ll be clauses allowing for price increases for delay caused by things outside the control of the parties ( covid, material price increases over a certain amount, unexpected extra work necessitated by unforeseen work ( strengthening of the dock walls on river side and dock side, voids, archaeology, and client instructed changes ). We know there has been archaeology, the walls have had to be strengthened to cope with scour, that was notified late, allegedly, by the steam packet, that’s a client variation.

Its a brownfield site, there will have been reports available to contractors before tender, but only so much can be discovered from surveys and exploration.

Its one of those things that, once you’ve committed, it’s open ended.

The real question for me is, once we were given notice to leave the pierhead berth, and Stena became unavailable, there was no real assessment of the need for Liverpool, or alternatives. Yes, we sailed a ferry to Holyhead and Mostyn to check berthing. But all possible ports are at capacity. Mostyn and Fleetwood aren’t available. So it was spend a fortune at Liverpool or focus solely on Heysham.

Half our English passenger traffic passes through Liverpool. All our freight through Heysham.

I can understand IoMGovernment wanting to own and control any new site in Liverpool. We’ve paid for a new landing stage twice in the last 50 years, never owned it, always paid landing charges, been held to ransom by MD&HB and then Peel Ports, and then turfed off because servicing cruise liners is more lucrative and cheaper.

When I moved we were still sailing to Fleetwood and Stranrear. Do we not just go to Liverpool ‘because we can’ rather than any real necessity? If only  Heysham was available that’s what we would be going to exclusively. 

If we had known that it was a £70m build I don’t think it would have seen the light of day?

[hissingsid]

Who is the we Derek I thought that you had moved over the water ?

[Derek Flint]

15 minutes ago, hissingsid said:

Who is the we Derek I thought that you had moved over the water ?

Home is where the heart is buddy.

[Kopek]

Do we just carry on like this, lurching from one financial disaster to another?

Is it not time that our Govt took control of these situations or should it be the vocal backbench who force the Govt to do so???

[cissolt]

17 hours ago, Kopek said:

Do we just carry on like this, lurching from one financial disaster to another?

Is it not time that our Govt took control of these situations or should it be the vocal backbench who force the Govt to do so???

When Mr Crookhall himself is calling for an enquiry you know things have gone terribly wrong.

For 75 million we could afford to buy every person on the island a second hand jetski!

[Non-Believer]

17 hours ago, Kopek said:

Do we just carry on like this, lurching from one financial disaster to another?

Is it not time that our Govt took control of these situations or should it be the vocal backbench who force the Govt to do so???

Bear in mind; this project is being "overseen" by a Government Department that our very own Chief Minister has described as being "unfit for purpose".

That Department is staffed by officers that our very own Chief Minister has described as "not being able to be relied upon to pass accurate or truthful information".

Were this a private sector project, those statements alone would be enough to slam the brakes on, see a complete re-evaluation carried out and any other avenues and options considered or even reconsidered. Apart from those persons in the latter statement being removed.

But this is public money so it's ok, not much to see here.

 

[Happier diner]

2 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Bear in mind; this project is being "overseen" by a Government Department that our very own Chief Minister has described as being "unfit for purpose".

That Department is staffed by officers that our very own Chief Minister has described as "not being able to be relied upon to pass accurate or truthful information".

Were this a private sector project, those statements alone would be enough to slam the brakes on, see a complete re-evaluation carried out and any other avenues and options considered or even reconsidered. Apart from those persons in the latter statement being removed.

But this is public money so it's ok, not much to see here.

 

Where does the word 'overseen' come from? You have put in in quotes. Where is the quote from? Genuine question.

Isle of Man government is the 'employer' which is another word for customer. i.e the entity which is paying. 

[Non-Believer]

24 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

Where does the word 'overseen' come from? You have put in in quotes. Where is the quote from? Genuine question.

Isle of Man government is the 'employer' which is another word for customer. i.e the entity which is paying. 

Yes, O Troll...employing and over-seeing on behalf of the Manx taxpayers and paying with their money.

Simple question, keeping things relative. If you were having a £20,000 extension built on your house and the cost progressively ballooned to over £70,000 and quite possibly beyond; would you be happy or would you be questioning what you had signed up for?

[Happier diner]

5 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Yes, O Troll...employing and over-seeing on behalf of the Manx taxpayers and paying with their money.

Simple question, keeping things relative. If you were having a £20,000 extension built on your house and the cost progressively ballooned to over £70,000 and quite possibly beyond; would you be happy or would you be questioning what you had signed up for?

I would be questioning what I had signed up to.

I am not trolling. I am not defending the government. I am merely saying it ain't that simple now. It's a right cock up in fact.

[asitis]

I find it hard to believe, that with the state of the islands finances at the moment, people  can still be happy at blowing what will be 100 million on this farce ! Shopping ,football and the TT are not commercially viable reasons to have the port without freight. As we now own the SPCO, we should be looking to maximise what benefits the profits therefrom can bring, and operating on a strictly bottom line principal, not some feelgood "presence" factors justified by, well nothing whatsoever. Three people blew 30 million of the film fund  public money on some unquantifiable benefits, which are still "unquantifiable" !

Weekend shoppers, Everton and Liverpool supporters, and a once a year event on the island won't cut it. As for the projection of 500,000 visitors a year what a load of cobblers ! The airport will need to up its projections of 2 million passengers a year as well. 

I don't honestly believe anyone would have voted for this to go ahead if at the outset the cost would have been realised. Surely Mr Cannan can't let a department, who he has already described as unfit for purpose, continue to damage public finances in this way !

 

[monasqueen]

Compare the move of Liverpool terminal with the move of London's council workers from the City Hall to "The Crystal".

I have selected a few quotes from today's Torygraph article. I have highlighted some, which rang a few bells....

.................

Critics say the financial benefits of moving the Greater London Authority to the Crystal in east London have been exaggerated.

Sadiq Khan recently admitted these plans have been pushed back to January, with the refurbishment of the Crystal taking far longer than expected. 

Susan Hall, head of the GLA Conservatives, says: "The moving costs have already rocketed by 70pc to £13.6m. And the Mayor still hasn't confirmed the final bill for the building works.”

"The Crystal is quickly becoming a symbol of Sadiq Khan's mayoralty: delayed, over budget and deeply uninspiring. 

But Khan has been quick to swat away any criticism.

“There's always snags and issues that come up in any major construction, in any infrastructure project.” 

...............

The article is at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/13/opponents-count-cost-sadiq-khans-delayed-deeply-uninspiring/  but unfortunately you may find this to be behind a paywall.

[hissingsid]

Well the great debate is going ahead and will probably continue for some time.   It could cost over 40 million to abandon the

 

 

project which would be disastrous in my view because we would be without anywhere to sail the fast craft to.   I am totally for the project to go ahead because I believe Liverpool is the gateway to the UK from our point of view and with a 234 year lease we would be assuring a berth for our boats for the future .   There has been an amendment proposed by the public accounts committee who want to dissect every penny spent so far with a fine tooth comb which sounds commendable but will achieve nothing except tie up god knows how many civil servants on top wages so more expense.    The estimate for the project seems to have been well out considering they were dealing with sea walls and heaven knows what, add on brexit and Covid and it has just ran away altogether.   Daphne is on next after the lunch break so that could be interesting or not.    They will probably vote it through as really they have no option at this state of play but it will be a long and wearying session.