28% cost hike on £1bn A66 upgrade blamed on Project Speed acceleration
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Speeding up construction of Highways England’s A66 upgrade has added £280M to the final estimated cost of the project.
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) annual assessment of Highways England reveals that the project’s forecast outturn cost has risen by 28% in the last year. It was previously forecast to cost £1bn.
The ORR report concludes that “acceleration through Project Speed has increased the cost of the scheme”.
The scheme includes the construction of a new bypass, dualling along existing sections of road and major junction improvements.
Highways England has originally forecast construction to take 10 years, however the government’s National Infrastructure Strategy revealed that a Project Speed review cut that timeline in half with construction now due to last five years.
The time savings have been made by increasing modular and offsite design and construction practices.
Earlier this month, Highways England project director David Haimes told NCE’s Future of Roads conference that the roads operator is now looking at speeding up delivery of other projects.
“The Project Speed principles of building roads quicker and faster but also considering health and safety and social capita is very much something we are reviewing on schemes,” he said.
“The A66 was very much a path finder scheme. We had a great opportunity to test some of that thinking there.”
Department of Civil Engineering https://www.ibu.edu.ba/department-of-civil-engineering/
