West Sussex road overspend ‘shock’

Future capital projects in West Sussex face uncertainty after the local council revealed that it is diverting funds from its budget for the next two years to compensate for a £6.2m overspend on Edmund Nuttall’s £32m Fastway contract.

West Sussex County Council (WSCC) has now launched an independent inquiry into the problems on the contract. The difficulties on the project, which will provide dedicated bus lanes and signalling between Crawley, Gatwick and Horley, came to light at a recent council cabinet meeting.

The news of extra costs is believed to have come as a complete shock to Nuttall, as on its website it revealed that it delivered phase one of the 24km scheme to within £50,000 of the budget in 2003 and also kept costs “under control” in phase two.

Although the council was unwilling to provide a breakdown of the over-spend, as it would “risk the outcome of the inquiry”, WSCC has cited construction problems as the main cause of the spiralling costs on the contract, which is now in its final phase of works.

Completion is still set for January next year.

The results of the inquiry, which is being carried out by an official from another authority, are expected to be revealed next month.

WSCC intends to take £5.2m from this financial year’s budget and £1m from the 2006/07 kitty to cover the over-spend.

Henry Smith, leader of WSCC, said he was “extremely shocked”. He added: “I want to know why it is such a large overspend and why it went unreported for so long. It should never have been allowed to go on like this.”

WSCC said it is now considering action against Nuttall for the extra expenditure.

Nuttall refused to comment on the developments and referred all questions to the client.