Laing drawn deeper into lead poison case

Exclusive by John Leitch



Laing has been drawn further into the lead poisoning controversy at Liverpool's Lime Street Station (CJ 6 June) after it emerged that the contractor was made aware of the problem in the early stages of the project.

The project's scaffolding subcontractor Rigblast almost doubled the value of its original £3.5m contract due to stoppages. Among reasons cited by Rigblast for the stoppages was the need to avoid high levels of lead in the air.

Rigblast spent much of its first year on site waiting for decisions as most of its applications for extensions of time went unanswered. The cost of excess hire time mounted and Laing is thought to have settled with Rigblast afterwards at £6.5m.

A source said: "When Rigblast submitted its claims to Laing, it itemised the array of problems into 23 different categories and one of these was its inability to work due to high levels of lead in the air. There were six instances of this problem. Laing... accepted the validity of staff blood tests."

The painting subcontractor at Lime Street was Colebrand. The specification of its contract was that old paint had to be removed before starting the task of applying five layers of new paint. "Colebrand's contract said that it had to be mindful that the old paint could contain lead," said the source. "In fact, the old paint was half-an-inch thick in places, some of it having been there since Victorian times."

A key question is whether Laing authorised a change in the method of paint removal.

The source claimed: "After the contract was agreed, Laing authorised a change in the method of removal from high pressure water jetting, which would have contained all the lead particles removed, and switched the technique to a saturated grit blasting method which blasts particles off into the air."

However Colebrand disputes this, saying that it never priced the work with water jetting, arguing that the usage of water at the rate of 25 gallons a minute would have caused problems with the volume of contaminated slurry.

Frank Kershaw, Colebrand's contracts manager, said this week: "We carried out the contract in accordance with health and safety recommendations and to the requirements of Laing management."

A Laing spokesman said: "Safety standards were high and work was approved by inspectors."

Laing, working as a construction manager [extended arm contractor] for Railtrack, the client, originally won the refurbishment of Lime Street after pricing the project at £16m.

The TUC has instructed its solicitors to take legal action against Colebrand, Laing and Railtrack to claim compensation for up to 100 staff suffering the effects of lead poisoning.