Olympic plant supply row heads for courts

A row over a £15m contract to supply plant to the 2012 Olympics site could end up in court.

John Reilly, boss of Rainham-based Nationwide Plant, is threatening legal action against Morrison Construction following a dispute over supplying machines to the Stratford site.

Reilly told CJ he had signed a deal with Morrison in September last year to act as the ‘No 1 supplier’ for 25t excavators, 30t dumpers, and dozers for 12 months on a £150m Olympic remediation contract.

Reilly believed the deal was exclusive and would see Nationwide supply hundreds of machines to the site from January this year, making it worth between £15m and 20m.

But Nationwide has so far only been called on to supply a few dumpers and one dozer. It has not been called on to hire out any excavators to the site at all, despite investing around £4m in new kit.

After months of wrangling, Morrison offered Nationwide the chance to provide 33% of the hire business available at the site for dozers, 20t-30t excavators, and dump trucks, for the remainder of the 12-month period.

But Reilly has refused the deal and told CJ that he would now launch legal proceedings.

He said: “Morrison says it wants to move forward, but we can’t move forward and forget 10 months. The money that it is costing me on a daily basis is stupid.”

Morrison declined to comment.