Council faces extra £277k bill for upgrading recycling centres

East Ayrshire Council is facing an additional £277,000 bill for upgrades to two recycling centres after previously unidentified structural and site problems were discovered during construction.

The local authority confirmed that work at Garlaff, near Cumnock, and Western Road in Kilmarnock is expected to exceed the original accepted tender values by 21% and 12% respectively.

The upgrades are part of the council's wider waste services review and include new food waste facilities.

Unforeseen conditions discovered after work began included problems with electrical systems, foundations and structural steelwork, which required elements of the original designs to be altered.

According to the latest East Ayrshire Performs report, the original accepted tender for work at Garlaff was £852k.

The final contract figure is now expected to be £178k higher, taking the anticipated total to just over £1m.

At Western Road, the original tender value was £811k, which is now forecast to increase by £99k - bringing the anticipated final figure to approximately £910k.

The combined forecast cost of the two contracts rises from £1.66m to around £1.94m.

The changes also affected project timetables, with extensions required to allow the additional construction work to be completed.

Officers said specialist investigations had been undertaken before work began at Garlaff because of the technical requirements associated with operating a waste management facility.

However, deterioration in steelwork beneath the ground was not identified until excavation work was carried out by the contractor.

The damage required additional foundation and remediation work which had not been included in the original construction specification.

Senior management argued that some problems could not reasonably have been identified without opening up the existing structure.

Cabinet members were asked to note that both waste facility contracts were expected to exceed their original accepted tender values by more than 10%.

Story by Local Democracy Reporting Service reporter Kevin Dyson.