Builders let off £225,000 late penalty

A DEVELOPER revamping a Lothian school has escaped a £3000-a-day penalty for overrunning its completion date.

West Lothian Council will not collect the £225,000 to which it is entitled after contractors hired to improve Bathgate Academy under a controversial private finance initiative revealed they will miss the scheduled finish date by almost three months.

Contractors Alpha Schools Ltd, a consortium led by Morrison Construction Ltd, claims that the extent of the fire safety work now needed to the building on Edinburgh Road was not realised when the project started last year.

Work to build two new external fire stairs is now under way.

However, the council’s decision to waive the penalty has been met with outrage from opposition parties in West Lothian.

The work at Bathgate is part of a public-private partnership deal worth £54 million over 30 years to refurbish and renovate five schools and create one new one.

Three secondaries are benefiting from refurbishments - Bathgate, Whitburn and Broxburn Academies - as well as two Linlithgow schools, Linlithgow Primary and Low Port Primary.

A new primary school has been built to the west of Linlithgow.

Bathgate Academy is undergoing £7m worth of improvement works which include a new sports hall and playing field.

SNP councillors, who are adamantly opposed to the private finance funding mechanism, are demanding the authority reconsider its ruling.

SNP leader Councillor Peter Johnston said: " Labour councillors forced through a decision to deduct only ten per cent of the daily £3000 penalty the council are entitled to impose.

"This effectively means that public money is being spent on protecting the profits of the PFI contractor. This as an outrageous decision and we believe that this money would be better spent on improving the education of local children, especially those who have had to live through all the additional disruption to their education caused by the delays in completing their schools."

And he added that the time needed to install fire safety measures should have already been taken into account. Mr Johnston, a teacher, said: "There is no excuse. Fire regulations were amended by an Act of Parliament effective from December 1, 1997, and the last amendment came into force from December 1,1999.

"As the PPP contract was signed in August 2001, the PFI contractor must have been fully aware, before the contract was signed, of their fire safety responsibilities."

West Lothian’s independent councillor Duncan Maclean added: " This money should definitely be clawed back for Bathgate Academy and other schools in West Lothian. There are schools here that still need to have asbestos removed and it could have gone a long way to paying for that."

However, a West Lothian Council spokeswoman said: "Nothing has yet been decided as regards the deductions for non-completion to schedule at Bathgate Academy and officers are currently in negotiation.

"Alpha Schools have without question accepted the cost of providing the fire stairs at the school - estimated at some £450,000.

"The council has therefore gained from this work. The PPP contract will not have cost a penny more to the council than was originally reported to us, though we will have benefited from the new fire stairs."