 Felly, rwy'n gweinwch i ffôrth gynradd yng Nghymru, ac yn cyfnodol, ond y Pwg Fwg Fwg Fwg Fwrdd. Felly, rwy'n gweinwch i'w ddowod i gydag o'i myfodol y ffôrdd gyda'r cyfnod, ond, rwy'n gweinwch i'w pwyllgor i'r ffôrth gyda'r gwybodaeth, rwy'n gweinwch i'w ddau cyfnodol. The only item on the agenda today is for the committee to take evidence on progress of work on the fourth replacement crossing from the project team. Therefore, can I welcome David Climie, project director and Lawrence Shackman, project manager of the fourth replacement crossing team at Transport Scotland? Can I invite Mr Climie to make a short opening statement? Yes, thank you very much. I'm pleased to be able to report continuing good progress on all aspects of the work for the FRC project since our last appearance before the committee in March of last year. The three completed contracts, 5ITS, M9 Junction 1A and the Contact and Education Centre are continuing to operate well and progress on the principal contract for the Queensferry crossing and the approach roads continues on time for completion by the end of 2016. Overall, this progress has allowed a further reduction in the project budget range from £1.4 to £1.45 billion to £1.35 to £1.4 billion, which was announced last October. This means that the project has released £195 million of savings since the construction started in June 2011. Focusing on progress on the principal contract, and you might find it helpful to refer to the plans that we've supplied for this, on the south side the new B800 bridge is being constructed alongside the existing South Queensferry to Kirklessdon road, with the steel bridge beams having been lifted into position last autumn and the bridge deck concreting currently in progress. The A904 has been rerouted across the new South Queensferry junction and the B924 in the same area has recently been rerouted to allow the excavation work for the new M90 road cutting to the north of the junction to start in the near future. On the Queensferry crossing, the progress has been clearly visible over the past 12 months as the towers have climbed ever higher, the first sections of the bridge deck have been erected and the construction of the viaduct and the supporting piers has made marked progress. When we reported to you last March, the centre tower was leading the way but the north and south towers about 20 metres behind. As expected, the flanking towers have caught up and indeed overtaken the centre tower, reaching bridge deck level last summer and now well past halfway in total height. The tower cranes for the north of the centre towers are now actually above the height of the Forth Road bridge towers. On the viaducts, the steel work for the south approach has all been delivered, assembled, welded and painted, and the focus has now shifted to the north approach viaduct. The gantry crane and the assembly workforce have all moved across the north side and a large tent structure has been installed to provide as much weather protection as possible for the welding and painting works. Many people will have seen the impressive sight of the large floating crane working around the towers in September and October last year, which installed temporary trestles, working platforms and the first four bridge deck units at each tower. The operation went very smoothly and benefited from a period of calm, settled weather. The large blue structures on the deck sections, which were also installed by the floating crane, are the lifting entries, which will be used to lift the remaining deck sections into position. In the recife marine yard, 72 deck units are currently stored and the concrete deck has been installed on 15 of those working inside the casting shed to ensure factory quality. On the north side roadworks, the B981 from North Queensferry has been re-routed to the west of the disfirmland water treatment works, and the large steel girders, which will form the ferry toll viaduct, have been assembled. The first three were lifted into position earlier this month. Work on the bridges to carry the northbound M90 across the new ferry toll junction has included the lifting in of the concrete beams late last year, and the concrete bridge decks are now being constructed. In addition to the physical progress and across the project, we continue to engage with the public, schools and stakeholders on an on-going basis, making use of a wide range of communication techniques, with the contact and education centre being the focus of these activities. This has resulted in very positive media coverage and community relations have been very good, with much positive feedback from our recent project annual update briefings at the end of January, which were attended by over 400 people. We also continue to monitor the performance of the two road contracts completed earlier in the project, and the performance of those remains positive. Overall, 2014 was a year of significant and highly visible progress, and we are confident that this will continue in the year ahead. Thank you very much, Mr Climy, for that very helpful update on the construction progress to date. There clearly has been significant progress today. Can you give us a little indication of what the further physical progress milestones will be between now and completion of the project? Certainly, yes. I'm going through area by area, if I may. On the towers, we're currently at port 30 or 31 out of 54. The first cable installation to support the decks occurs at port 40, and we expect to be at that point by the late spring of this year. The towers will then carry on up to their final height, which is 54, and they'll all be there by the summer of 2015. On the cable-stayed bridge deck itself, the deck lifting will start in the late spring, and it will take about a year to install all of the deck, building out the fans from each tower, and all of that will carry on simultaneously. That will be followed by the road surfacing and all the M&E works, which will be carried out during the summer of 2016. The south approach viaduct deck, the concreting of that, will start in the late spring, and will run through till early 2016. On the north approach viaduct, the assembly work, which is currently under way, will be complete in the summer, and one of the key operations will be the launching of the north approach viaduct out over the northside piers in 2 and in 1, which we expect to happen in the late summer of 2015. The deck will then be concreted in the spring of 2016, and at that point we will have a complete structure from end to end of the bridge. North approach viaduct, the cable-stayed bridge deck, and the south approach viaduct. On the south side on the roads, the B800 bridge, which I mentioned earlier, that will be fully open to traffic in the summer, and we'll then be able to demolish the existing bridge, and the final road connections on the south side will be complete in the autumn of 2016. On the north side of the ferry toll viaduct, the girders are being installed now, that will be completed during this month and next month, and the deck will be complete and concreted in the late summer of this year. Perhaps an important point to mention is that on the main line, the A90 going through the project, because of the roadworks at ferry toll and having to tie those in, we will be installing average speed cameras on the main road from the Scottsden junction in the south through to Aberlty in the north. We expect that on the northbound side, those will be installed in the late spring of this year, and on the southbound side in the summer of this year, and those will be in operation until the completion of the project. Those will reduce the speed limit from the current 50mph to 40mph. We decided that we'd have it in operation right over the fourth road bridge as well, because one thing that we've specifically noted is that traffic is slowing down on the fourth road bridge, looking at what we're doing. There's no doubt that there's been a lot of distraction there, so it makes sense to have the 40mph average speed limit to control the traffic flow right through that entire area. But the difference between the three miles at 50mph and 40mph is less than one minute in travel time, so I think the impact is going to be very insignificant, and based on our experience with 5ITS and M9 Junction 1A, the average speed cameras actually helped the traffic flow rather than inhibited it. That's very helpful, thank you. Would it be fair to say that the project is currently on time and within the revised budget range of £1.53 billion to £1.4 billion? It's certainly on time, yes, and the budget range is £1.35 billion to £1.4 billion. The top end is £1.4 billion, and that's as announced last October. It's certainly still very much on track for that, yes. What are we looking at as the completion date for the project without one attempt to fade? I've been asked that many times recently, and I think we're just under two years to go if we rash to try and speculate on a precise date. Okay, let us not do that then, but give us some indication. I'll stick to what I've said every time I've come here, which is that the end of 2016 will be fully open to traffic. Okay, we will settle for that, thank you very much. Can you highlight any key events that are due to occur in the next six months beyond what you've told us today? I think I covered most of the key things that are going to happen, but obviously the two ones that I want to focus on, in terms of technical challenge, perhaps, are the launch of the North Approach Viaduct. That's a very large piece of steelwork. We're assembling all of it behind the north abutment at the moment, so that's going to be 6,000 tonnes of steel that will be launched over about a three-day period in the late summer. That presents quite a technical challenge in launching that out for nearly 200 metres across those piers. Also, we start the deck lifting operation, which is lifting up a 750 ton deck unit with steel and concrete fixed onto it, lifting those up into position using the blue lifting gantries either side of each tower. That's due to start in the late spring. That has a number of challenges associated with it in terms of the barge, positioning the barge, lifting the deck unit, fitting it onto what's already there. Once we've been through all those technical challenges, those are the two real key ones that we have to get over. At that point, we can say that we've done everything now, everything at least once, so we'll have more confidence in going forward and finishing on time. Is there anything that you'd like to add at this stage, Mr Shackman? Just to say that in the next six months the B800 bridge will be completed, which is number one on the plan, and the old bridge will be shortly demolished thereafter. The ferry toll viaduct, which is number six on the north side, will also be nearing completion, as well, towards the end of the year. Great. Thank you for that. Michael, do you have a point on this? It's just a slight further question. The committee had an external visit to Forthports on Monday of this week, and one of the people we spoke to there mentioned that there were a number of civil engineering firsts associated with the bridge. I think, if I'm correct in saying that, that included the longest continuous concrete pole or ever, and that kind of thing. In some ways, if we're at the cutting edge of civil engineering on this project, that, I think, is of interest to Parliament and to the wider public, and I would certainly be interested in hearing a bit more about that aspect of things. I apologise to my colleagues if they're not as interested as I am. I'm very pleased to get a question like that. You're right. There are a number of firsts on this job. The particular poor that you refer to was when we filled up the south tower case on with concrete. We'd excavated it all out under water, and at that point we then had to fill it up with concrete, underwater concrete, entirely underwater. You're correct in saying that we believe that was the largest continuous underwater concrete poor ever undertaken in the world, and that took a continuous 15-day period to put that in place, and that involved about 17,000 cubic metres of concrete, so roughly 40,000 tonnes in weight, and it was very important that we were able to supply that from our own batching plant in Rossife, so they set up our own batching plant in Rossife, so all the concrete is manufactured on the site within our own control. It's then put on to four barges, which have mixers on it, which continually shuttles backwards and forwards to the south tower. Another point that hasn't been done yet, which is coming up, is we are the longest free-towered cable-stayed bridge in the world, and when we start building out the decks from the centre tower, we will reach a point when we have them not quite connected up to the fans coming out from the north tower and the south tower, when we'll actually have the longest-balanced cantilever in the world. That point, obviously, is a pretty key one in terms of resistance to wind and all that side of things, and it's actually one of the key design criteria for the bridge itself. When the bridge is finished, it actually takes far less load on the centre tower than when it's at that position, not quite connected up to the fans from the north and the south. Could I ask you, sorry, with your indulgence, convener? Scotland's got a very proud civil engineering history going back to Telford, the Stevenson Brothers, and so on. It seems to me that this is in that kind of general orbit. I would certainly be interested in more information on these kind of things that we should celebrate about this bridge beyond just a generality of it, and I'm sure maybe some of my committee colleagues if you could provide further written information, because I do believe we should celebrate these things. Just on Mike's point, are there any plans to have visitor's centre that would showcase the achievement that this will represent? We already have the contact and education centre, which we're using very much to sell the engineering excellence, if I could use that word, of the bridge construction, and not only our bridge, but also the fourth road bridge and the fourth bridge, which is obviously just about to have its 125th anniversary. So it's a really very unique setting, and we have the contact centre at the moment, and we literally have thousands of people passing through that building. I think it's about 23,000 people we've now had either on a school education visit or people coming for a presentation or family open days, that kind of things. So they're already experiencing the engineering that's happening outside of the window of the building, and obviously the committee be very welcome to come back and visit the contact centre again. We envisage that building going through, beyond the opening of the bridge. There is some discussion as part of the fourth bridges forum to see what the ultimate visitor attractions are in the area, and that's a separate exercise, but I think everyone who's working on the project would like to make sure that there is something that people can come to visit and experience all the three bridges. We raised earlier questions about finance of the bridge. Perhaps we should declare an interest that in the last session I spent many months in the Bill Committee, so effectively I felt that I was living and dreaming about the fourth crossing, which is a very sad state of affairs. The question that I raised at the time to the minister was about European structural funds, and I appreciate it being the one that our witnesses can answer today and it may be one for the minister. That is the issue around securing European structural funds for the bridge. The witnesses will be aware that 10T funding is available in Europe, particularly if it's part of the trans-European transport network. I do understand that there's a couple of unsuccessful bids and there's some techy issues about how it might cut across the block grant, but nevertheless, on the basis that we had received substantial funding, that may well have cut costs for Scottish taxpayers. Have our witnesses any evidence at all about this that would be useful for the committee in its deliberations today? You're correct in that we did make two applications for the 10T funding in the early stages of the project. What we found is that there are some very specific criteria that are attached to those 10T funds, and therefore we had to very much try to shoehorn the large project into a very specific criteria to see if we could be eligible for those sort of things. One area that we tried to focus on in the early applications was to do with the ITS, the intelligent transport system, to see if there was a way of using that to access these funds. Unfortunately, we were not successful in the two applications that we made, but certainly it's something that we do each year when the applications open. We do look at the current criteria for the 10T funding to see if there is any way of getting access to it. I think that for very large project, as we are, it can be quite difficult to meet the specific criteria that are attached to those sort of funds. Thank you. Perhaps a very brief follow-on, convener. Perhaps our witnesses confirm, then, is the fourth crossing currently part of the trans-European transit network? I understand that when I was raising this a number of years ago there was still some debate about this with Europe. What's the current criteria? Is there any further work we need to do with Europe for perhaps smaller projects that could then be eligible? I must say I'm not absolutely sure on that, so I think perhaps I'll take some advice on that and provide you with some information on that following the appearance today. Thank you. Thank you, convener. Alex. Thank you very much. I've got a couple of minor questions, and some of them are on issues that we've covered to some extent already. First of all, even the news recently reported that construction chiefs, I suppose that's what you are, thought that the project may come in under budget, and I heard of schedule. First of all, on budget, did the figures that you gave us earlier in this meeting cover the latest estimate and take into account that speculation? Yes, they do. Yes, they do. And I'm aware that, as we get towards the end of the project, the scope for that figure changing becomes very limited. Do you think that that figure will most likely be the final re-estimate of construction costs that we see? No, I think it's fair to say that we remain optimistic that there's still possibilities for some further reduction, particularly with regard to inflation. I mean, obviously at the moment we're seeing extremely low inflation. We still have just under two years of exposure to the inflation, and we certainly, in the projections that we've made, we haven't assumed that the experience to date is definitely going to be to continue for the duration of the project. We've always maintained, I think as we said before, a 2 per cent per annum minimum figure, an 8 per cent per annum maximum figure in terms of future inflation, and that we didn't want to assume that the good experience so far would necessarily be repeated. So there's certainly still an opportunity there. I would also say that, in concluding these projects, the final account with the contractor is always an extremely important part of it. We have an extremely good relationship with the contractor. There are currently no outstanding claims in that relationship going forward, but I'm optimistic that we will be able to do that. Relations are extremely good. So there's still a possibility, and I couldn't put any stronger than that, that we may be able to get some further savings yet. The speculation also suggested that the bridge might be completed ahead of schedule, and not with the fact that the conveners already had a go at you to see if you can get an opening date. Is it the case that the project is proceeding on schedule and that there would be only limited scope now for that schedule to be significantly short? That's exactly right, yes. I've been asked that question on many occasions, including at the recent public briefings, and it's certainly something that I would not claim that we could do better than we're currently predicting. There's very limited scope really at this point, but it's something that continues to monitor very closely, and should there be a change in that, obviously we would update the committee appropriately. Thank you. Perhaps the project director could say something about the technical term of optimism bias, which I understand was in the initial contract, which, as members may know, is the psychological aspects of contracts where people tend to overestimate the costs and the ability to get project on time. That's already in the project cost, is it not? Perhaps the directors could say something about that. There is an element of optimism bias which has always been in the budget, and that's absolutely right. If the project has progressed through both the procurement period and now the construction period, that does steadily reduce because you start off with guidance as to what the optimism bias should be, and obviously in the early days of the project when you're still looking at scope and the contractual conditions and so on, you would have quite a significant percentage within the optimism bias, and you may remember when we first started pre-procurement even, we were talking about potentially a budget when that included a very large element of exactly that optimism bias, but as things have progressed through that optimism bias has progressively reduced and has been able to be released, which is part of the reason why, again, the budget has been able to come down. Thank you, Alex. I listened to the news, so the BBC reported in the late November last year that Carlo Germani was leaving the project in December last year, and that a new project director would be appointed. Has a new project director been appointed at this stage, and can you give an assurance that this change has had little impact or no impact on the project? Yes, I can. Carlo left the project just before Christmas. FCBC went through a very robust procedure to find a replacement for him, and what has happened is that Michael Martin, who had been on the FCBC board for the previous two years representing Morrison Construction, who was one of the four partners of FCBC, decided that he was the ideal candidate to come forward and become the FCBC project director. He took up that role from 1 December, so there was a month overlap with Carlo, but given that he had been on the board, there had been a very strong working relationship there prior to that. He knew all about the job, he wasn't coming in fresh to it, and from my point of view it has been a very seamless transition from Carlo to Michael. We meet just as regularly as I did with Carlo. We have just the same robust discussions about how things are progressing, and I'm very happy with the way the whole transition has been managed. Given that, can we assume then that the highest degree of continuity has been achieved in that change? I think we can, yes. Thank you. James. Okay, thanks very much. In November last year you announced that Amy had the contract to maintain the fourth road bridges. Could you give me an update on how you've been engaging with Amy to ensure the smooth hand-over? Yes, sure. Amy were awarded the fourth bridges operating company contract in December, and they're now in their first of two mobilisation periods. The first mobilisation period leads up to the start of June when they take control or they start the contract for real, maintaining initially the fourth road bridge and the connecting road network from Halbyth in the north just off the top of the plan actually right the way down to the junction 1A junction that we improved as part of the fourth replacement crossing project in the south. It's not a particularly long section of road, it's the fourth road bridge so that's first of June they're due to take that over and they also have a second mobilisation period which is really the Queensbury crossing and the connecting roads that are being constructed as part of the principal contract and they will be responsible for the maintenance and operation of the bridge and those connecting roads obviously when they're fully open to traffic at the end of 2016. As part of that second mobilisation period they will be taken on board in terms of understanding the nuances of the Queensbury crossing all the mechanical and electrical systems all the different maintenance regimes that they will have to use to properly look after the bridge throughout its life so we'll have a series of site visits with them we've already started that process and there's been several visits already with FETTA the current maintaining authorities so you're well aware and with Amy themselves I think there's a site visit programme in the next few weeks in the series of visits so that will become more and more intense as we get closer to the opening of the bridge the contract itself is a five year contract which can be extended to 10 years by agreement in yearly increments and obviously the FETTA facilities which are at the south side of the fourth road bridge will become occupied or the ownership of Transport Scotland and Amy will be able to use those facilities the one other thing I was just going to mention on the contract is we have recently through the project reconfigured part of FETTA's offices to form what will become a bridge control room for both the bridges so we've now extended part of what used to be the conference room in the FETTA building to enable our contractor to fit out that room with all the facilities to monitor the bridge the Queensbury crossing I'm talking about so all the security systems CCTV all the structural health monitoring systems and all the different things that you'd expect in a bridge of that scale will be housed in that room and then later when FCBC have finished doing that some of the control systems or most of the control systems for the existing fourth road bridge will be added to that room so there'll be a proper first class facility for maintaining both of the bridges OK, I have no further questions Thank you, Mary The convener, can I ask some questions around community engagement and Mr Climey in your opening remarks who said community relations were very good and I know as the project has progressed that working with the community to deal with their concerns and minimise the impact of the construction has been a key issue for you and the committee has written to local residents groups seeking details of concerns and you'll know that key concerns that have been raised are around mud from construction vehicles on the road the speed of vehicles and the impact of construction noise so can you tell me what progress has been made to alleviate those concerns Certainly, to put those comments into context it's very important to note that we have our community forums which meet on a quarterly basis which were specifically established to deal with exactly these issues to make sure that we are engaging with the community addressing the issues as they arise and making sure they are properly dealt with In terms of the noise, we also have the noise liaison group which meets on a monthly basis and we review any complaints that have been received relating to noise and we also monitor all the noise and vibration monitoring data and we collect from a wide range of sources across the whole site both on the north side and on the south side Inevitably, with the work we're doing particularly over the last 12 months or so we've been doing specific work on the A904 which is very close to people's residences and also with the work at Ferry Toll that has become quite more significant we are fortunate there that we don't really have any residences close by but obviously mud on the road there has been an issue a lot of work has been put into making sure we do regular road sweeping and cleaning in the area but we also have tough challenges and there are some very limited working areas there and we're also trying to make sure that throughout all the various phases of the work we maintain full connectivity of the road network and also routes of pedestrians and cyclists through our work area so a lot of planning work does go into that and whenever we do receive a complaint or a contact regarding any of these issues we make sure it's followed up very quickly a response has to go back within 48 hours and we try to make sure that these are addressed very quickly and therefore they don't become like a running sore on the job I think to date we've been very successful in that in terms of the number of issues that have arisen I think people have seen that when they have raised something we've addressed it in a timely manner and that's something we will continue to do throughout the project Mr Shatman, is there anything you want to add to know? No, just in terms of mud on road for example the code of construction practice basically says that we've got to be employ measures which are reasonably practicable and in some of the areas it's very difficult if not impossible to actually get dedicated wheel washing facilities for wagons that are accessing those areas particularly around the ferry toll junction for example and so we're we're on the contractor's case all the time to make sure that the roads are kept as clean as they possibly can be bearing in mind that it's very difficult to actually put a bespoke dedicated wheel washing facility in those particular areas having said that there are dedicated wheel washing areas both on the south side and on the north side which service pretty vast areas of construction site so not only does the contractor FCBC have wheel washes washing vehicles out on the north and the south side but we're monitoring that work and make sure that everything is done as quickly as possible and it is a challenge as David mentioned to keep mud off the road particularly in the winter when it's wet and there's also grip from the sorting process to keep the roads free from ice but yes it's a number one issue that we're really making sure that we address and has the number of complaints and concerns raised has that diminished any since the construction work has started or has it increased and dropped off is there any kind of methodology to why people are complaining I can certainly give you some figures the average number of complaints per month since we started working August 2011 is six and I think last year when we came to this committee it was five a minor increase in the number of complaints and I think they range from topics such as noise, vibration issues traffic management the dust and mud issues that we've just been talking about and some various other miscellaneous issues so it's a range of issues and I think as we've been interfacing with the public roads more and dealing with construction near to people's properties the number of issues not necessarily complaints has risen but on the positive side of things although we do have some complaints I think we've had 996 inquiries across the project in general recently we've had a lot more positive comments about I'm pleased to see that you're building this road to incorporate footpaths of a good wide standard good cyclist facilities people are seeking more information about final junction layouts and they're interested to know about the project so it's not just the negative side there are quite a lot of positives The project has progressed people have been able to see how it's developing and has that changed the engagement they have with you? Yeah, I mean to some extent we have the community forums and I think we've now had 35 community forums over the last four years in total they meet every three months but we've also had a huge number of people visiting the contact and education centre all through the last summer and we're just about to start again in March we have the contact centre as an exhibition or an open day if you like every Saturday so people can drop in and we've certainly had literally thousands of people doing that and we have members of our staff there to answer any questions they have and they can view the models we provide presentations recently only a couple of weeks ago as David mentioned at the beginning we had a series of public and stakeholder meetings and we had over 400 people come to those meetings to find out about not only what we've done over the last year or so to bring them up to date with the project but also looking forward as David highlighted as well over the next couple of years and the key activities and they were really very positive the responses we got from people Newton community council in particular have raised concerns and I'm sure you'll be aware of them and I wonder if you could give us an update on where you are with their concerns around the traffic lights which have been installed to mitigate the impact of the high volume of traffic and the community council stated the speed of a significant proportion of the vehicles travelling through the village is still a concern also concerned around the pollution monitoring equipment which has been installed in the village because they've reported to us that the data from the equipment is not always easy to find and interpret so can you give us an update on where you are with those concerns that have been raised yes certainly and I think Newton is one particular area where we should actually be celebrating a success when we came to speak to you a year ago at that point we had the first year of data of the M9 junction 1A operating and what that had done is that it resulted in traffic flows through Newton on the A904 reducing by 13% overall and the number of heavy goods vehicles was down by 52% now following that the traffic lights which you mentioned were installed in August 2013 and we've now got a year of data of those having been in operation as well and what we've found is that in the second year of operation traffic on the A904 is now down overall and the number of HDVs is down by 68% so I think that having actually put the traffic lights in there along with perhaps our more intrusive works on the A904 at the South Queensferry have encouraged more people not to use that route and to go round through the M9 junction 1A obviously also there with the reduction particularly in the HDVs that's also going to have seen an improvement in the air quality in the area one thing that I think has been justified there is that the actual location of the air monitoring equipment there is perhaps not ideal because it's being I think it's getting results from other factors other than the road traffic in that it's quite close to I think some people's houses and there's some building work going on so therefore that's being looked at at the moment to see if perhaps a reciting of the monitor would produce a more accurate set of data in order to be able to monitor this we will continue to monitor year by year going forward we have traffic counters there in terms of the speeding in the area obviously we've put additional signage in place we do talk with Police Scotland at our traffic management working group which also meets on a monthly basis both on the A904 area and through Newton itself with passing on these concerns because obviously it's a police issue to actually come out and check for speeding and they've been out on a number of occasions and they've found that they're they've caught a number of people but it's something that we are we're keen to keep pushing as much as we can Thank you Finding the results the air quality monitoring device which is known as a T-OM I won't go through all the words for what that stands for because it's quite confusing phrase it's quite a sophisticated piece of equipment was installed by our contractor but it's actually owned and operated by West Lothian Council and they provide the data that comes out of that device to the Scottish Air Quality website so that's the main source of the full data that's provided by that device the particular matter which is what our contractor has to record the information is also lodged on our website for that information so that may be what's confusing for the community council there so we'll clarify that with them anyway OK, thank you Thank you Adam Yes gentlemen, can I ask you have any new areas of concern been highlighted to you during recent community forum events? I'd have to say that in terms of the community forums the number of items that have been raised in recent meetings we've actually got the North forum tonight and the South forum next week the length of the meetings and the number of issues that's been raised by community councils in particular has actually reduced quite a lot over the last couple of meetings and they've been more taking on board the programming of the upcoming works obviously alerting us to the need to minimise impact on the local roads the local communities in terms of the issues that we've mentioned before the dust, noise, traffic management that kind of thing which we're always at pains to try and minimise so in terms of general issues on the North side I think some concern perhaps about the ferry toll junction works and to try and make sure that people have got the best information on ferry toll junction works we told the community forum that we were going to have a series of public meetings to explain the upcoming phasing because there's a huge number of phases to actually get the existing road network into its final form and form the ferry toll junction and to realign the A90 over the new bridge rather than over the fourth road bridge some 15 or so phases so we had a series of meetings and we brought them on the back of that issue being raised at the forums which were well attended events in North Queen's Free and Vacating Recife and also at the Contact and Education Centre and we asked people to sign up for email alerts for all the upcoming changes to the traffic management and I think we have over 350 people signed up for that information we've issued 10 different email alerts now and we've been encouraging people whenever we speak to the public or stakeholders particularly the public meetings a couple of weeks ago to sign up for these alerts so they'll be fully aware of the particular phase that the traffic management is in at any particular time we haven't put all the phases out because there's a possibility that some of the phases could be swapped round and discrete changes made so we don't want to confuse people and we'll update people at the community forums and through the project update and the website accordingly so that's one issue on the north side south side I think it's more concerned about perhaps the timing of the completion of the Queen's Free Junction works we're now basically pretty well complete for the Queen's Free Junction they were very keen to understand when that work was going to be finished there's a number of project updates letter drops through doors in the vicinity to try and make sure that people understood when the works were being carried out and the different phases there and as I say now that the works in that area are largely complete there's some of the cycleways pavements some of the mounding and tree planting are continuing in that area and that would be the vast majority of the works around the Queen's Free Junction Eclan Corner area completed so that's one of the issues from the south Thank you very much My apologies for missing your introductory remarks and this question that you might have covered Can you explain why it has been necessary to reduce the speed limit between the Eclan and Admiralty Junctions from spring this year until the Queen's Free crossing opens? Yes and the reason for putting the average speed cameras in place is because particularly on the north side we're going to have to divert the northbound carriageway over onto the new structures and that's going to happen in the late spring so at that point we're going to be working in much more close proximity to traffic we have an obligation which is very important to maintain two lanes of traffic in each direction not all the work that we do apart from occasional night work but it's very important to us that we can maintain those two lanes of traffic in either direction and the safest way to do that is to have the 40mph speed limit because at times we will be working very close to the traffic now the thought, if we did look at could we have a short section at the south end around Scotstown and then a short section at the north end around Ferry Toll and not have it over the Forth Road bridge but as I mentioned earlier when it's crossing over the Forth Road bridge traffic is slowing down on the Forth Road bridge anyway so therefore it seems to make sense and it will avoid driving a confusion to have the average speed cameras all the way from the Scotstown junction in the south through to the Abnerlty junction in the north and as also mentioned earlier the effect of that on the travelling public is less than one minute in terms of additional travelling time and our experience has actually been that the average speed cameras improve the traffic flow rather than inhibit it the committee recently contacted several of the community representative groups based in the area which was affected by the construction work of the crossing we received two very helpful responses from the North Queensferry residents group and from Newton community council which have informed our questions to you this morning another community representative group that you'll be familiar with the bridge replacement interest group however that it did not have sufficient time to consult with the groups it represents and respond to the committee within our timescale it will instead write to us at later stage to provide us with its views can I seek an agreement from you that the committee can write to the project team seeking a response to any parent issues that arise from their representations certainly, we'd be very happy to deal with that we're very familiar with that group I don't think that any of the issues will be a surprise to us so I'm sure that we'll be able to provide you a response if you write to us with any specific concerns Thank you, that's very helpful Mike I have just a couple of brief questions about the public transport strategy and I wonder if you could provide the committee with an update on the work of the public transport working group and what the key developments have been there over the last year the meeting the working group meets on a sixth monthly basis or thereabouts and we're due to meet on the 30th of March is the next meeting and it's a mixture of Transport Scotland people, myself actually on the working group Fife Council, West Lodian Council City of Edinburgh Council, Cestran First Bus, Stagecoach Confederation of Passenger Transport and our own team consultants The way it's standing at the moment is there's a second revision is lodged on our websites in the public domain and it has a whole series of potential schemes that could be raised sort of beyond the scope of the project that we're actually building at the moment it does also contain some of the projects that are within the scope of the project such as the bus running schemes that we've already implemented and are seeing are running very well helping buses to skip some of the queuing traffic particularly on the approach to Newbridge for example we also monitor some of the other performance of the scheme particularly the bus lane on the Fife ITS contract that's quite a talking point at the workshops that was originally managed as being a temporary arrangement for the construction phase of the project but the working group most of the members are very keen to make that a permanent facility particularly in view of the fact that it runs between Halbyth Park and Ride which opened at the end of 2013 and is on the main conduit to the crossing of the fourth so it seems sensible as demand increases that there's a good chance for public transport or buses to use the hard shoulder running facility and bypass any potential queues so we monitor that and we inform the group about what's going on with that and as I say it's working successfully we find that I think 12 buses typically use that bus lane in the morning periods we also talk about some of the other aspects of the project the managed crossing strategy itself and how buses will eventually be able to use the fourth road bridge but also the Queensford crossing if there's high winds affecting the fourth road bridge to make sure that we have bus journey time reliability and also the ferry toll Park and Ride is going to be improved the access and egress arrangement there so we give an update on that obviously that's part of the main contract around the ferry toll junction and some of the work is progressing as we speak there the wider issues we talk about one of the big issues over the last year has been new bridge interchange which is right at the very southern end of the project corridor and a public transport corridor study is currently underway there which is a jointly funded study between Transport Scotland City of Edinburgh Council and West Lothian Council to try and see how bus movements in particular across and around that junction can be improved in the longer term I think it's quite a challenge to make sure that everything will work to a much more reliable degree in the future but that is one of the main focuses it seems to be a main bottleneck for public transport particularly from the local authorities point of view so that study is now ongoing there's another series of issues I monitor the park and ride I mentioned at Halbeath which now is a thousand car facility and is used by around 480 to 500 cars every day so it's about half full and as I understand it from the bus companies that's a normal sort of thing it takes quite a while quite a number of months or years to actually get the patronage right up to the maximum capacity ferry toll park and ride is already up to the maximum capacity so that's a positive that people are getting out of their cars and using the public transport to get to move to destinations south of the fourth out of the other interventions and I think there's around 2025 of them all together we look at the development of one ticketing with the potential migration to smart ticketing which is a Cestran initiative I can't say that I'm particularly close to that particular initiative but that's being investigated to try and help with ticketing of public transport measures in and around Edinburgh really and the Lothians marketing of the facilities to encourage more use of the park and ride we also have our colleagues from Traffic Scotland contribute to the group now because we're hoping to use the variable message signs to encourage people out of their cars and on to the buses by displaying signs such as it's 20 minutes from this particular point by car to barnton or wherever it might be but if you go by bus it would be 10 minutes I'm just talking theoretically but trying to give an example of if you got out of your car then you'd actually get there quicker so that kind of thing there's some other more physical initiatives being looked at potential for some slip roads I'm thinking the B800 to what was referred to as the M9 spur it's the M90 now to try and bypass some of the major road works or road corridor congested roads so that buses get a better priority down towards the airport and the new bridge junction that's one of the potential initiatives I think I've said enough That was a pretty comprehensive answer You've partially preempted my second question Forgive me if you actually mentioned this but maybe escaped me the study that you mentioned the joint study that Edinburgh Council are participating in when is that due to be concluded or to report? I think it's a six month study of the top of my head I think it's six months or so it's not a particularly long study If I could just say in every aspect of this project seems to be a paragon of good practice and public sector procurement and delivery of projects other lessons that have been learned can we look forward to this being the standard of excellence that will be applied for all public sector infrastructure projects I think there's a lot of work is going in to make sure that we do capture the lessons learned from what we've done on this project and that's both within Transport Scotland for our other major projects but also within the wider Scottish Government as well I think that Lawrence participated in a wider Scottish Government lessons learned workshop a couple of weeks ago That was right I mean there was colleagues there from building prisons, hospitals schools all these kind of things it doesn't necessarily have to be a road or a bridge that's being procured but general experience that we've learnt through I use the word governance is really the key to everything and planning out projects well making sure that they've got the right budget you've got the right information at the right time obviously the right people to advise you through the course of I mean I could go on about this for hours on end but it sounds simple but actually putting it into practice is quite a trick to have to master Thank you very much Thank you David How many apprentices are currently employed on your project? Apprentices we currently have 14 but that's part of a much wider training scheme that we have on the project Obviously apprentices are part of the vocational training as we call it across the whole project we currently have about 1200 people on the site 133 of those are currently taking vocational training at an svq level 2 or above that includes the 14 specific apprentices so the cumulative annual average that we've got in terms of training is just under 100 96.4 in terms of vocational training the modern apprentices they're all from the Fife, Lothian, Edinburgh area they're going to either Edinburgh college, Carnegie College or Perth college or training of civil engineering technicians there's two as electricians one as a welder and fabricator and one as a business administrator and in addition to that we also have professional training which is training to become chartered engineers or chartered surveyors we've currently got 20 people going through that process and cumulatively to date we've got an annual average of 39 people who've been going through that and within Transport Scotland itself within our group the Employers delivery team we've successfully got 12 people through to chartered engineer status actually on this project which I think is something we're very pleased about very proud of we've also done work with a long-term unemployed we've currently got 71 people out of the 1200 working on the site who had previously been unemployed for at least 25 weeks and that equates to an annual average of 48.5 in terms of what we've done throughout the project so we set some fairly stretched targets in terms of minimum requirements in terms of annual average and I'm very pleased that the contractor is significantly ahead in all three areas both in the vocational training the professional training and the long-term unemployed How have these figures varied throughout the contract do you expect that number to be fairly stable but was there more at the start or do you expect more at the end or is the number you quoted going to be about the same through the whole project period? I think that what will happen on the vocational training we're at a fairly stable level now in terms of the numbers on the site we're going to stay around the 1200 number pretty well through to completion what may start to drop off a little bit is the professional training for engineers that was quite heavily weighted towards the design phase because obviously it's a design and build contract so therefore that tended to be front-end loaded in terms of the professional training places in terms of the long-term unemployed that took a bit longer to ramp up in the first couple of years our annual average on the long-term unemployed because at that point there wasn't so much site work going on so there weren't as many opportunities in that particular area but it's very encouraging to see that we've now moved ahead of the target that we had and we're confident that we can maintain that right through to completion now My own personal view is that any large public sector contract should have a community benefit can you remind the committee whether there was any element of community benefit in the project for which it stated that there should be a training provision for the successful bidder Yes, there was we set very specific requirements in terms of a KPI and in terms of principal contract what we specifically asked them to do and put it into the contract was that they had to deliver an annual average of 45 vocational training positions 21 professional body training places and 46 positions for the long-term unemployed so those were specific contract requirements we deal with those as a KPI a key performance indicator and there are mechanisms within the contract that there could be a financial penalty to the contractor if those were not achieved and also in parallel with that we asked the two bidding contractors in the dialogue phase to put forward their proposed KPIs for how they could also benefit the community and the winning contractor FCBC put forward a number of areas where they thought that they could deliver that and those were also built into the contract as part of the KPI regime and that particularly was in terms of funding for community projects it included PhD students it included opportunities for further education students to gain work experience on the site so although we set some minimum requirements within the contract we also encouraged the contractor to provide extra in their bid to us and that was actually evaluated as part of the quality evaluation of the two bids that we received I'm certainly pleased to hear that that's a very positive story my next question is about the evidence that you gave a year ago you gave an assurance to the committee that you keep a watching brief on the issue of blacklisting by contractors can you give the committee an absolute insurance today that there's absolutely no blacklisting by contractors on this project? Yes I can and that's something I gave you that reassurance a year ago it's something I specifically sat down and asked Michael Martin earlier this week before I came to the committee and he gave me exactly the same categorical assurance that there has been no blacklisting on the project and there's no intention that there ever would be My final question is again can you remind the committee whether there was any assurances when the contract was awarded that the successful contractor had to register all employees within the UK for national insurance purposes? I don't know that specific requirement but there's certainly an obligation in the contract that they must comply with all UK laws and legislation which I think would cover that particular issue so there is a general obligation that they absolutely must comply with all legislation but there wasn't that specific point you raised identified as a particular point Perhaps I can put the question slightly differently Are all employees on the project registered in the UK for national insurance's purposes? Yes I believe they are That's an absolute assurance That's a broad and exempt from national insurance Certainly not as far as I'm aware Thank you, convener Do you have any further questions for the project team? Alex Going back slightly to the structure of the bridge and its future management I wanted to raise the issue of lighting for a number of reasons I presume that for marine navigation purposes the food of the towers are already lit during the years of darkness Is that the case? Or marked by lights They are marked by lights that's correct and also the navigation channels are marked on the deck of the bridge as well to identify where the navigation channels are in relation to sufficient navigation clearance on the bridge I presume that arrangements are in hand to improve the lighting should it be necessary but essentially that part of the job is done already It is, yes We actually go through an extensive collaboration with Forth Ports who are the managing authority within the river Therefore, we've gone to a consultation with them and they actually have to sign off with a certificate to confirm that they are in agreement with everything that's being provided in terms of navigational lighting for the project I notice that there's already warning lights on the tops of the towers and of course they will go up as the towers go up What are the plans for illuminating the tops of the towers or marking the tops of the towers with lights after the completion of construction and are there likely to be any issues regarding the presence of these lights in terms of local population What is required there? We have to have aircraft navigational warning lights which are similar to the ones on the existing Forth Road Bridge so there's a fixed light that has to be in position and I think also a flashing light that has to be in position on the top of each tower so it's similar lighting in accordance with the requirements of the Civil Aviation Authority and again we have to consult with them for their requirements so again there's a certificate that has to be provided that says the lighting that's being provided is fully in compliance with CAA requirements Will that be white lights or will it be red lights or will it be a mixture? I believe it's a mixture, I think there's a fixed red light and a white flashing light I'm not an expert on this but that was on the existing Forth Road Bridge and I believe it will be similar for our structure as well In a different aspect of lighting Will the road deck of the bridge be illuminated during the hour of darkness? Yes it will Also I should mention that all the lighting on the project on the main roads is going to be an LED type lighting so we're looking very much at the energy efficiency of that and I think it also has the ability to be dimmed as well should that be dimmed the appropriate way to do things My other question relating to that was will that light extend over the whole range of the project including the approach roads? There are some parts of the the actual bridge itself will only have aesthetic lighting it won't have true road lighting for the vehicles it'll have a ribbon light along the full length of the deck and the towers will be illuminated and it's proposed to be a white light so it's just a ribbon effect The bridge itself won't have road lighting but there is provision should we deem it necessary in the years to come to put proper road lighting on there is road lighting north of the ferritole junction because of the it comes down to a road standards issue basically and volume of traffic issue and the closer the junction is the more likely there is for safety reasons that you should put in road lighting junctions nearly always have to have lighting anyway and also from the Queensbury junction round to the Scotston junction that section will be lit as it is at the moment so all the existing lighting will be replaced and renewed with the LED lighting You mentioned the issue of aesthetic lighting and of course the fourth rail bridge has been illuminated for some time If you are to be using aesthetic lighting on the new bridge have you taken into account the overall appearance of the area on the earth and darkness and how the lighting on one bridge can complement that on the other I was taken into consideration during the aesthetics review stage of the project and when we were looking at the form and shape of the towers for example and that was a huge amount of discussion with architecture and design Scotland so they were party to the different arrangements of the towers and also to the lighting and making sure that it was sympathetic to the two existing bridges Thank you Thank you Alex Do members have any closing questions? Thank you Are there any concluding remarks that you would like to make? Thank you for your evidence this morning I thank you also for the regular written updates that you provide the committee with on the progress of the project and we look forward to seeing you before I think about six months time and again before the completion of the project by the end of 2016 Once again thank you very much I close this meeting of the committee