Newsletter editorial - 02.06.05

contractjournal.com Newsletter - 02.06..05

A risk too far

Will major contractors steer clear of major stadia projects following Multiplex's £45 Wembley loss?

The construction of any national project is major news - but if the main contractor responsible struggles to meet cost or time targets it becomes headline making.

Take this week for example. In the national press the £757m Wembley stadium project has taken a real battering. "Wembley blow", "Wembley Trembley" and Wembley Hit By Cash Crisis" are just three examples of how much the national press revel in bad news stories.

Not that it is just the national press. CJ also ran the very latest on its front page this week, while another construction title decided to base its page one story on an unnamed source who claimed that the actual lossses for Multiplex could top £100m. Not that there were any facts of figures to back this up mind.

All this doom and gloom over what should have been a lucrative contract for the Australian contractor makes you wonder if contractors will bother bidding for stadia projects in the future. Yes there have been success stories - new grounds for Derby County, Coventry City and Bolton Wanderers were all completed without a hitch. But they are all a third less in capacity than the new home of the England national team.

And let us not forget that John Laing took a £26m hit on the Millennium Stadium project, capacity 75,000, and that was worth just £126m to the contractor when it was built at the end of the last decade.

With two major contractors hit on successive massive stadium projects one question remains - will a ground with more than 60,000 seats ever be completed on time and to budget.

All will be revealed next August when Arsenal FC are due to move into their new home at Ashburton Grove - contractor Sir Robert McAlpine will certainly be hoping its third time lucky.