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AndyB wrote: ↑Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:35
So things have moved on!
We've discussed this in other threads since 2015, but this is as far as I can see the specialist thread for the scheme.
To be funded by the DUP's magic money tree, a contractor was to have been appointed in 2017, but this went to the High Court, where a decision was handed down this morning.
Basically, the tender evaluation panel said that "BAM-McCann had not understood the unique nature of the project and had not provided enough detail about phasing of work" but the judge said that they had clearly understood the the project and that there was insufficient transparency about what detail was required about the phasing.
A remedy hearing will follow in September to decide whether to rerun the competition, cause DfI to rerun the evaluation, or other options. There could be a claim by the original winning contractor for sunk costs.
Hopefully finally this can get going. Badly needed.
Depends on whether they need ministerial approval for the result of the revised tender process, given that it was clear ministerial policy to proceed when funds became available - just hangs on whether the existing approval only related to proceeding with the original contractor.
So I think they may be able to award the contract once whatever is agreed at the September hearing has been sorted. It would however definitely require ministerial approval to allocate funding.
Just on the political aspect - the £1b deal was only for two years in any case. So time will run out, clearly, to spend all of it (and likely to spend any of it) in this area.
If there were an election the deal falls completely, because the Confidence and Supply will have been broken to cause the election. No new Government is bound by its predecessor. That is, after all, how it works - the DUP is promised £1b in return not to bring down the Government.
We will leave aside the fact that we haven't seen much of the rest of it yet either...
I think it's quite possible that the delay caused by the legal challenge will scupper this project entirely. Sinn Fein have always indicated they want to make more progress with the A5 and A6 before York Street, and no money had been allocated at the time Stormont collapsed last year. So, as Ian says, the scheme had NO funding until the DUP-Tory pact suddenly provided it. As it was purely a matter of necessity rather than love, when the pact terminates, for whatever reason, you can be quite sure the government will withdraw any funding they agreed in the pact that hasn't been spent. If the tender process has to be re-run it could take a further 9 months. If that sort of delay happens, you could find that the scheme is finally good to go in mid 2019, but with no money. Basically, the time period of the DUP-Tory pact is the only available window for providing this scheme in the near future.
In terms of Ministerial approval, that generally applies to the decision to proceed with the scheme. The tendering process can be carried out after ministerial approval is given. For example, the A6 from Dungiven to Derry was approved by the Minister and went out to tender in February 2017, after Sinn Fein pulled the plug on the Assembly. It was finally awarded to a contractor in March 2018, and is about to begin. A tender has no impact on the overall strategy and basic design of the scheme. So ministerial approval is clearly NOT needed to award a tender. So I don't think YSI will be impacted by the lack of a minister.
So the DUP are the ones pushing the project yet they are the ones that helped ensure no further EU funding for NI roads...so when the pact breaks? Or maybe if NI remain in the SM and CU this avenue may still be available, I don't know.
