THE opening of the Queensferry Crossing has been delayed until July or August of this year.
As we revealed on Sunday, the revised target of a May opening for the new bridge across the Forth had slipped due to poor weather.
Scottish Economy Secretary Keith Brown told MSPs the latest delay to the flagship £1.35 billion bridge was due to the impact of bad weather conditions, and contractors are “now advising that the opening to traffic date is more likely to be between mid-July and the end of August”.
Giving evidence at Holyrood’s Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, Mr Brown said: “To put that into context, that’s around four to 10-week delay on a six-year construction programme.
“The precise opening date will depend on the amount of weather downtime which occurs in the coming weeks, with the latest date being based on weather similar to that which we have seen in February and March.”
He said the impact of bad weather, particularly high winds, had caused slippage in the programme and a review found the project could now not be completed by the revised May date even if there were no weather cancellations.
He said the delays caused weather-dependent work to “bunch together” and become interdependent instead of sequential.
BREAKING: Queensferry Crossing will now open July/August instead of May. Delay first revealed by the Post here: https://t.co/bkzEdVWUog
— Andrew Picken (@andrewpicken1) March 29, 2017
Wind patterns in that area are well known from neighbouring bridge so why didn't contractor factor in more time https://t.co/YVN5X9wvuT
— Andrew Picken (@andrewpicken1) March 29, 2017
Engineers had hoped the 1.7-mile link across the Forth would open last December, but that was revised until the end of May due to poor weather hitting construction.
The Sunday Post first revealed doubts over the new crossing’s opening date in December 2015.
We revealed potentially crippling delays to the 1.7-mile link, with work on its towers and vehicle deck months behind schedule.
The taxpayer will not be left out of pocket due to the delays as the project is on a fixed-price contract.
And as the works are set to extend beyond June, the quango can claim for damages.
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