John Carson: Procurement process pushes costs up over the odds

Published on Monday 21 March 2011 14:11

MANY people think we're paying a very high price for this bridge due to the way we are procuring it.

Similar bridges around the world are not anywhere near the price of this bridge. The nearest type, called Stonecutters, in Hong Kong, cost about 250 million in 2004.

The form of this bridge has been predetermined by the government, which means coming up with a detailed design based on strict concepts already laid down.

I supported the idea of a tunnel. The Swiss have just built a 100km tunnel below the Alps for 8.5 billion. Any tunnel under the Forth would have been at most 8km, so when you condense those costs down, there's no doubt in many people's mind that a tunnel would be cheaper.

The Forth is a hostile environment in which to build. The existing bridge was shut down for a lengthy period during construction in the 1960s.

They had huge problems trying to build it. Its latitude is quite far north and the Forth is exposed not only to the east coast, but also the west coast. The geography of Scotland means that the Stirling carse opens that whole area up to quite severe winds.

The towers for the existing bridge are about 500ft high, but the towers for the new bridge will be about 750ft. That's about one-and-a-half times more and building those in that environment could be problematic. Wind, rain and ice are all a factor. When you get that high, you're mostly exposed to winds from the west. This has caused the cables to ice up on the Forth Road Bridge in recent years. The weather can be pretty fierce and that's one of the elements to overcome.

Another element includes the foundations in the river, which won't be easy either because they're in quite deep water.

Another issue is that the bridge will be built in China, not Scotland. It's all metal and is really just like the big crane that came into Rosyth recently from China.

The reason it came from China is that it can beat, hands down, anywhere else in the world for fabrication prices at this time. So we are likely to have next to no employment in terms of this bridge if it gets built this way.

I would take with a pinch of salt any figures about jobs in relation to this project.

lJohn Carson is a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers who led the team that built the Skye Bridge