Officers ‘partly to blame for £2M Darlington road overspend

30 April 2008
 
Consultants brought in by Darlington Borough Council to investigate why a new road went almost £2M over budget found officers had been party to a host of management errors.

The council said no disciplinary action would be taken because some of the officers involved had left the authority and others had been part of a management restructure. The inquiry team, from Billingham-based construction consultant EC Harris, criticised officers who had been in charge of the contract to build Darlington’s eastern transport corridor, linking the town to the A66, which went 15% over budget with costs rising from £12.5M to £14.4M.

The investigation found officers ignored complaints from local residents that the road was being built on top of a 2m-high embankment when original plans showed it to be at ground level. It discovered the budget did not include potential compensation claims for house prices adversely affected by the works, work on utilities that cost £872,000 more than expected, and the cost of traffic signals that had increased by £300,000.

The report recommended that council staff should receive more training in handling contract negotiations.

Chief executive of the council, Ada Burns, said: ‘There were no surprises in the report. In many ways, this has told us what we know, which is something we dealt with in terms of our overall structure last autumn.

‘The report has not identified any particular fault on the part of individuals. The project evolved over many years, and many of the officers are no longer with the council so there is nothing to be achieved by a disciplinary investigation. The decision to continue work on the road after residents complained was appropriate, and officers are now working through how we manage the implications.’

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