It was back in January 2013 that Salford City Mayor Ian Stewart announced "a new partnership approach between Salford City Council, the hospital, City West Housing Trust, the police and other agencies, all coming together to make sure that this brand new £5 million facility rejuvenates the centre of Swinton".
Salford Council's website stated proudly that the Gateway would see a transformation of the old Crompton House on Chorley Road... "Work is set to start in March and will be completed before the end of the year". Now, 19 months later, and way more than £1million over budget, the library section of the Gateway is set to open its doors on 20th July.
The project first ran into trouble after Kier had been awarded the construction contract for the Gateway, despite being targeted by Unite the union in its anti-blacklisting campaign (see previous Salford Star article click here). Next came the spiralling costs. The original £5million budget was to be paid by the Salford Clinical Commissioning Group but Salford Council has picked up the tab ever since for ongoing delays.
First the late `start on site date' of November 2013 was revised to January 2014, with an extra £500,000 put aside by Salford Council to `reflect the delay'. By June this year the total amount for the Gateway, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) response to the Salford Star, had jumped to £6.18million for a "variety of costs". The figure includes £5million from Salford Clinical Commissioning Group, £68,000 from the Basic Need grant and £1.012million from the Council.
However, in May, Salford Mayor, Ian Stewart, approved "additional expenditure due to the variation in cost of the programme" which, the Star understands, were not included in the FOI response....
"The council is unable to confirm the further sums of money budgeted for the remainder of the project" it stated "This is considered to be commercially sensitive and exempt from release under section 43 (2) of the Act which provides an exemption in respect of information where its disclosure may prejudice the commercial interests of any person. Negotiations with the contractor regarding final costs remain ongoing and disclosure of this information at this time would be likely to have a detrimental impact on the council's position in these negotiations.
"Consideration has been given to the public interest test" it added "While the council acknowledges the importance of accountability in public spending, it has been concluded that the Council's interests in this information being withheld from publication outweigh the public interest in the information being published."
In other words, in their own interests, Salford people are not allowed to know how much the Swinton Gateway has actually cost.
Back in May, the Council report rubber stamping the extra costs revealed that Salford Council had taken on liability for the delays, despite having options where the contractor, Kier, would have taken the risks...
"Had we chosen other options with a contractor design, then the liability wouldn't have sat with us but then the costs (effectively contractor risk) would undoubtedly be higher" it stated "We might have also considered a priced contract with either an activity schedule or a Bills Of Quantity, but the issue with that approach is that it would add a significant amount of time at the front end initially producing the information, a target contract approach allowed us to appoint a contractor quickly..."
In the event, the Swinton Gateway will be 19 months behind its original schedule by the time the library opens in July and way more than £1million over budget.
Swinton Gateway will house health, housing and social services, plus the library.
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