Alfred McAlpine accused of poor maintenance

A Nottingham council has expressed its disappointment at Alfred McAlpine's handling of maintenance work on a section of its £20m to £25m a year Area 7 MAC contract for Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland.

Broxtone Borough Council has already issued a written complaint to the Highways Agency (HA) on the Amscott joint venture of Alfred McAlpine and Scott Wilson over its handling of grass verge and tree cutting along the A52 trunk road.

Last year Amscott was accused by the council of providing a "very unsatisfactory standard of work" after it was awarded the contract in March.

The council also argues that the consortium was claiming it had done more verge clearing this year than it had actually done.

Amscott has now agreed seven more grass cuttings with the council for this year, even though Broxtone Borough Council said Amscott was two weeks' behind schedule.

Residents are now calling for the HA to terminate the contract as the council was now unable to coordinate litter collection as it waited for verges to be cut by the contractor.

However an HA spokeswoman said that pulling the plug on Amscott's four year contract was "out of the question" as the companies had responded to the agency's pressure to improve the service.

In a statement Amscott admitted that work fell slightly behind schedule, and in consequence, additional resources were allocated to the contract so that it is was now completely back on programme.

A spokesman added that the company had suffered some plant breakdowns and difficulty in obtaining clarification from the previous contractor as to which areas needed attention and to what standard. This made it difficult for Amscott to programme and allocate resources to the work.