 Good morning. I welcome everyone to the third meeting in 2016 of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee. Everyone present is reminded to switch off mobile phones as they affect the broadcasting system but as meeting papers are provided in digital format you may see members being using tablets during the meeting. Apologies have been received from Alex Johnson but I have great pleasure in welcoming John Scott, who is attending today as substitute. Laurel 1 yn ei ddweud cydnog cyfnodol iaethio'r pryd. Mae cydnog wedi rhoi bod yn cynnyddio cydymfans 5 i amgylcheddio ei ddynodol a'r amser y cwrwp hwn ar gyfer o gyfriffforddiol mwyaf dechourse ar gyfer o gyfriffforddiol mwyaf. Members ar gyfer. Mae nhw yn cyfriffforddiol mwyaf dech экспwr, roedd gyrthfawr yn cyfriffforddiol, agorwydd o'r gwiriedeg o gyfriffforddiol mwyaf dechasured ar gyfriffforddiol ar gyfer o gyfriffforddiol miw. In this inquiry, which is one of the most significant pieces of work the committee has undertaken this session, the committee aims to be both thorough and robust in its investigations in order to get beneath the surface of the reasons behind the closure. The committee is aware that people in Fife, the Lothians and indeed across Scotland who have been subject to disruption since the closure will be keen to ensure that the appropriate action was taken in the lead-up to and discovery of the issue and that all necessary precautions have and will be taken to prevent the situation recurring in the future. I now welcome Richard Hornby, director, Arup, John Russell, operations manager and Mark Arnt, operating company representative, 4th Bridges unit Amy, Scott Lees, head of network maintenance and Wayne Hindshaw, chief bridge engineer at Transport Scotland and finally Colin Clark, partner at Fairhurst. Good morning gentlemen. I would also at this point wish to place my thanks on the record to Transport Scotland and Amy for hosting the committee's visit to the bridge yesterday. We found the trip to be extremely informative and useful in putting our scrutiny into its proper context. I now invite Scott Lees to make an opening statement on behalf of Transport Scotland and Amy. Thank you for the opportunity to set out her role in the fourth bridge closure. Transport Scotland welcomes this inquiry and will endeavour to fully explain our understanding of this incident and detail the considerable work undertaken to reopen the fourth road bridge and affect a permanent repair. Our assembled panel today has been fully involved in the response to this incident and providing subsequent advice to Scottish ministers regarding the closure and the proposed repairs. The decision to close the bridge was necessary to maintain public safety and the structural integrity of the bridge. The decision was not taken lightly and was firmly based on expert opinion of our engineers and backed up by our independent experts who are here today. Our full focus remains on repairing the bridge as quickly as possible. However, we welcome the opportunity to clarify some of the points that have been raised in relation to the defect. Following the decision to dissolve FETA and appoint an operating company for both crossings, Amy took over the responsibility of the bridge in June 2015. Amy continued to use the same well-tested FETA procedures to inspect, manage and maintain the bridge, with the same well-experienced staff complemented by Amy's own considerable resources. Those procedures followed represent good industry practice and they are undertaken by experienced staff who have a thorough knowledge of the bridge. We have ensured that there were no compulsory redundancies as a result of the transfer in order to retain that unique knowledge and experience that had been built up amongst long-servant staff. The approach was successful, with the vast majority of FETA employees transferring to Amy. Two staff did opt to leave, but not before comprehensive shadowing and handover processes were completed. The bridge manager left several months before the dissolution to join our operating company in the north west of Scotland, where he still works. The bridge master left two months after to take up a significant post abroad. There have been questions about the level of funding that was provided to maintain the structure since tolls were removed in 2008. The last six years of tolls generated an average annual income of around £10.5 million. Since 2008, the Scottish Government has provided funding of nearly £108 million, so year on year, average budgets were similar to those prior to toll removal. If funding for emergency safety critical work was required, FETA had the opportunity to draw on their own financial reserves or discuss the need with Transport Scotland. That occurred in relation to the repair of the cable-band bolts, where additional funds were provided from our own maintenance budgets. FETA's indicative forward capital programme was considered and funding provided to meet their contractual requirements and deliver capital maintenance in a prioritised needs basis. Transport Scotland made grant offers in line with the outcome of discussions with FETA officials, and those were accepted by the FETA board. Moving on to the Trust End Link Assembly project, FETA considered works to this arrangement since 2006, and over the years a number of ports have been considered on possible ways to strengthen this area of the bridge. During all of this, no issue with the Trust End Link member or the pin joint was identified. The principal concern related to the tower bracket weld strands. Although part of the Trust End Link Assembly, that was unrelated to the unexpected defect that closed the bridge. By 2009, a preliminary preferred option was identified, which you would see the entire Trust End Link Assembly replaced at eight locations, with an estimated cost up to £15 million. However, that concept was at an embryonic stage, and FETA decided to seek to appoint a consultant to design the final solution. That tender opportunity was advertised in May 2010, but withdrawn in March 2011 due to affordability issues. It should be noted that the Trust End Link Assembly scheme was not dropped from FETA's capital programmes. Since 2011, FETA worked to re-evaluate the problem and develop a more proportionate cost-effective solution to improve the bracket weld strands. The construction project commenced in May 2015 at an estimated cost of £430,000. We believe that the defect was unforeseen. As always, in managing and maintaining our assets, we will take this opportunity to learn lessons from this incident in an effort to continuously improve. That incident has highlighted exactly how important this crossing is to Scotland's economy and its people. The decision to close the bridge set unprecedented challenges for strategic traffic in the east of Scotland and people living in local communities. We remain grateful for their patients and the sport demonstrated and the on-going patients of the freight industry. In closing, I would like to reassure you that we have exerted every effort to reopen the bridge as quickly as possible and mitigate the impacts of restriction. Every effort that is being made now to fully reopen the bridge to the HGVs, strengthen and work to the affected northeast section is on programme, and subject to favourable weather and no further defects being found, we will be in a position to reopen the bridge to the HGVs by mid-Febru. I will pick up on a couple of points that you made in your opening remarks. You said, if I heard you correctly, that funds were provided for maintenance and capital work from your own maintenance budgets. What year was that and how much are we talking about? The sum was £2 million. The year, Wayne, can you advise? 2012, 2013 and 2013, 2014. It was spread over two financial years. And the £15 million was for essential maintenance work that you had identified would be necessary across the whole of the bridge. Is that right? No, the £15 million related to the proposed scheme, which I said was at a very early stage, to replace the trust end links assembly, the connection assembly. That was a cost that the FETA had prepared and estimated. It would cost up to £15 million. How much of that work has been carried out today and how much has been spent on that work? FETA decided not to proceed with that scheme and came up with an alternative solution. That took a number of years for them to prepare. It has just commenced last year, in May 2015. There was a trial of strengthening work at the tower, one of the towers. That proved successful and then proceeded to move on to the other towers. That project has a budget of £430,000. Mark, perhaps you could advise where we are with that in terms of spending. Yes, as Scott said, the project was associated with strengthening repair of the bracket at the north west tower. That was undertaken as a trial, which commenced in May 2015. That project was commenced by FETA and transferred to Amy at the beginning of June. Amy saw that trial through to conclusion in June-July this year. Since that time, we took the learning activities from that project and applied them to the other three areas on the tower itself. That also kicked off in August this year on-site at the other locations. At present, we continued with the same work that was progressed by FETA as a trial. We have implemented that on-site now at two of the other locations, with one remaining to do. That is being taken forward as we speak as planned works. I am sure that my colleagues will want to get into some of the detail of this later on, but at the point where authority transfers from FETA to Transport Scotland, how much of the planned work had been committed to? The planned work for this element was to do with the bracket that supports the trust end links. What was taken forward was that one out of the four areas was progressed as a trial. That was commenced by FETA and concluded by Amy in the June period. The learning from that was then taken forward and all of the work to replace or to strengthen each of those brackets has and is being taken forward as we speak right now. That is part of a programme of work that was handed over at mobilisation. We had FETA's work programme in train handed over to Amy and they continued that. They have adopted the longer-term programmes that FETA developed into their forward projections. The decision not to proceed with the £15 million investment was taken by FETA, is that correct? I will leave it there just now. I think that it might be useful to the committee if you could perhaps outline just to inform our understanding what is the frequency of each type of inspection on the fourth road bridge and perhaps to set out what are the different types of inspections that are undertaken. Mark, if you could deal with that. Will bridges in the UK traditionally follow what is called general inspection, which is a visual inspection every two years, a principal inspection that is undertaken at close proximity to each element every six years and special inspections that are specific to particular issues associated with elements. However, the fourth road bridge is a large major structure as we all know, so it has its own special criteria, which defines its own inspection regime. The inspection regime for the fourth road bridge is set out clearly in the fourth road bridge engineering manual. The fourth road bridge engineering manual goes on to explain the basis and rationale to the inspection frequency and type of every single component on the bridge. It is based on something called criticality and vulnerability. This is a risk-based approach that looks at the consequences of failure, likelihood of failure, load path, transfer, a suite of options, as I say. It is a risk-based approach. From that is defined the inspection frequency for every single component on the bridge. The trust itself, which the trust end links for and part of, is made up of a diversity of components from posts and bottom cords and trust end links. The components on the trust vary between six monthly and five yearly, depending upon what the identified criticality and vulnerability was. The post member, which sits between the two trust end links, is inspected on an annual basis. Obviously, when you are out there and you are in such close proximity to the post, to the actual trust end links themselves, they are generally inspected at the same time. The trust end links are captured within all the other trust components, if you like. That element would have been inspected on an annual basis. What FETA has done, and again, as Scott outlined, the historic practice that we have continued forward with is that the trust end links since 2001 have been inspected on between a six to twelve monthly basis. With the most recent inspection at that area being undertaken on 19 May this year, I would also like to clarify that this is a unique bridge, and it is not the lo that we send teams out to look at it. We have a huge site presence there, 24-7. There is about 70 to 90 staff there at any one time, doing a diversity of maintenance inspections and routine cyclic activities. While the trust end links themselves are inspected on between a six to twelve monthly basis, we generally have people out on most areas of the bridge throughout the year. Okay, so you just clarify for the benefit of the committee, when was the crack in the trust end link first reported and during what type of inspection? The crack, I would like to also clarify, it wasn't a crack that was identified, it was a failed member. The failed member was identified on 1 December this year. The type of inspection, it was, again, I would like to clarify, not a planned inspection. The planned inspection was undertaken in May this year, but, as I said, the team that we have regularly are at other areas of the bridge. This defect was identified during a site visit to the bridge, which involved members of our inspection and the engineering team, including my colleague John, to my right here. Okay, so when were previous safety inspections carried out on that defect and what was recorded? As I said, going back the records that we have available to us in the fourth bridge database, it was inspected regularly between every six and twelve months back to 2001 as the earliest records I have, and at each instance in that database there was no defects identified. Michael, do you have a short supplementary on the specific point? Just interested to understand a wee bit more about what happens during an inspection. Is it a visual inspection looking for cracks or bends or things that are worn or are there measurements taken? What happened? I will get John to chat through the basis of what the inspection involves, because it is very difficult to access, but it is a visual inspection, yes. As a consequence of that, if there were potential defects or something did not look right and identified, the recommendation may be further testing or paint removal or whatever that happened to be. John, do you mind chatting us through the process? No, not at all. On, for example, this particular area, we have had two inspectors at the bridge for a number of years. The main inspector for this area is George Elly, who has got over 20 years' experience. George would have climbed out on the open trust, on to the bottom cord, attached with a sallal line, walked to the end where the pin comes down, attaches on to the end of the trust end link, and he would have done a visual inspection and obviously a hand inspection as well, to see if he could see or feel any cracks or movement that should not be present. Generally speaking, it could be done with mirrors attached on to the end of wooden poles. We have done that on the main cables as well, which is how we found the problem with the cable van bolts as well, the crack in there. George would have done that in his last inspection, as Mark says, on 19 May. It is probably the most inaccessible part of the bridge that we have. You will see later on through some of the paperwork that the scaffolder has set that we have had to put in place there. When the convener, Mr Stewart, came out yesterday, although there was a lot of scaffolding, you could just about any deal of how inaccessible it is. Generally speaking, to get to that, you need rope access. George would go out on the bottom cord and inspect that with mirrors, inspect it, feeling through any defects, taking photographs, bringing them back for inspection. We have 23 inspections of that locus since 2001, and there have been no defects noted on any of those inspections. In your professional opinion and with the benefit of your experience in hindsight, was there any other reasonable or appropriate assessment analysis on monitoring that could have been used to predict that defect? In the current circumstances that we have and the technology that we have at 4th Road Bridge, that would not have been able to be foreseen. If you are asking me for an opinion going forward, structural health monitoring that is going on on the new crossing covers an awful lot of the components that are there and feeds into a new system. We at FETA previously now, Amy, have put forward an idea that we should have structural health monitoring on the existing bridge as well, and we are having some of that at the moment, giving us data back so that we can judge how these other components are working at the moment. It is all technology, and it is a 51-year-old bridge with a 60-year design. My opinion would be that, if we have structural health monitoring on the existing crossing, that would be the way forward. I am a bit confused, because you are saying that it would be possible to predict this type of defect from happening, but it was not possible to do it up until now. Why is that? We did not have any structural health monitoring in place, so we had no sensors, et cetera, on those areas on the existing bridge. We are putting them on now to try and get the data as to how things are working. My opinion is that, if we had had that structural health monitoring in place, perhaps it may have been picked up. Okay, thank you for that. I just finally, along with other members, Dave Stewart, Alex Johnson and I attended a technical briefing at the fourth road bridge in December. At that point, we were assured—I think that it was in response to the question from Alex Johnson—that the bridge would be opened to all traffic. That has not happened because there is a restriction on access for heavy goods vehicles. Can you just explain why the advice that we were giving in December was subsequently not fulfilled? Okay, I'll take that, Scott. What we did at the ministerial briefing, we've always made it clear that the repair to this broken member is reliant on two major issues. One being weather, which we've managed to work through, and that's a credit to the teams out there. And the other is that there was no further defects identified. Now, what we did was we fully designed a repair solution that's been commonly known as the splint repair, and it's available in various media outlets and the like, to do a repair on that broken member to allow traffic to return to the bridge. That design was fully designed, checked and certified on that basis to allow all traffic to return to the bridge. However, in any design, you need to make assumptions within your design. Now, conservative assumptions were made, and the truss end links that you've probably seen out there have pin connections at the bottom. That allows the bridge to cater for wind movement, temperature, traffic. This is a huge structure with almost unstoppable forces, if you like. So the pin caters for that at the end of the bridge deck by swinging back and forward in the fluctuations. Now, if that pin were to become seized, that completely changes the articulation off the bridge. Remember, this is an almost unstoppable force the size of the bridge. If that pin becomes locked and seized, that changes the characteristics of the bridge. So there's no way you could design any member to cater for a fully locked pin. So what the design catered for was a very conservative assumption on the degree of friction in the pin and its ability to rotate. However, when we completed the strengthening repair phase one and jacked the bridge back up and joined a lady to install the structural monitoring devices, we did some controlled load testing to validate the assumptions within the design. The results from that controlled load testing indicated that the pin itself had become completely locked. Again, a scenario that the design couldn't cater for in terms of the phase one repair. That's why we looked at introducing a very quick phase one repair to get traffic open to all the HGVs, caveated by the knowledge that there was an assumption that some rotational accommodation would be accommodated in that pin. However, until we actually did the load test, affected the repair and observed the results, that was not predictable and that's where we are today. Thank you, convener. I think that at the technical brief you told the members that about 86% of the dead weight of the bridge is to keep the bridge up itself. Obviously, you're just leaving the remainder for traffic. HGVs have a disproportionate effect on the bridge. The other side of the coin is that, like many members, I'd meet with a lot of haulage companies who are very concerned about the current closure. Is there a scenario possible when the bridge opens for HGVs that you might restrict some of the heavy HGVs on the bridge or abnormal loads? I think that for a member of the brief yesterday, that can be up to 150 tonnes, such as moving turbines, that there may be some restrictions within the general field of HGVs. On that point, we did have a really successful meeting and briefing last week with the haulage industry, who were really sympathetic and understood the challenges that we were working through here and the challenge in front of us, to be honest. The design that we're looking at taking forward in this stage comprises two parts to it. There's an interim temporary works-type part, and as soon as that's in place, that will allow HGVs to return to the bridge. The third part of that is to replace the linkages themselves, but the design solution that we're looking at there will return the bridge to its articulation and load carrying capacity pre-December, which would cater for HGVs and abnormal loads up to the loads that we're looking at. I'll maybe just ask Colin to comment on that, who's leading on the design side. The stage 2 design, basically, we're going to catch the top cord on the Hollande structure. What that will do is relieve the dead load initially from the existing link, and then the load will be shared out between the existing link and the new temporary works, which allows us then to run traffic across the bridge. Once we get to the stage where we're going to replace the link itself, the works that we're putting in the stage 2 become the temporary works and take the full load, and that's what they're designed to take. Do you have any further questions, David? Just finally on HGVs, what is your anticipated timescale for the reopening of the bridge for HGVs? I'm conscious that there may be a number of scenarios that you're considering, so what's your best case and your worst case? At the moment, and this is just based on the data that we have to hand, mid-Febru remains the target to open it to HGVs. We've looked at all of the eight areas where the similar component exists, and if you recall when you were out there, there was the side spans, as we call them, and the main spans. The side span links we've identified as being non-critical to allow the return of HGVs, which leaves us with four areas of potential concern on the main span. Obviously, there's the one broken link that we are aware of, and we're undertaking the design and construction works right now to affect that, and that has a programme for completion in mid-Febru this year. Mid-Febru, what if you encounter further difficulties? What's the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is that all four of these remaining pins are seized. We've confirmed that one area is not seized and is articulating properly, which leaves us three areas of potential concern. Looking at working 24-7, as we did throughout December, and remobilising all the resources that we can, that would take us through to roundabout mid-March towards late-March, with any caveats on weather and the like, if all three areas were needed to be done. At this present moment in time, all we know is that it's at that one single location. Mr Daze maintains that the incident was entirely unforeseen, yet it was identified in 2009 as the trust end links needing repaired. Given the failure, the fracture in this member, was that not a foreseeable outcome of the replacement not being carried out when it was first identified as needing to be carried out in 2009? Start off, and Colin has 20 years' experience of this very issue, so he can maybe come in after me to give you a bit more context. I've spoken to a lot of people, I've read numerous reports. I've spoken to the former bridgemaster about this very issue. For example, he did not think that this was foreseen. The problems that were previously identified were the bracket well's strength, so it wasn't the other bits of the bridge. For example, when we had the handover from Feta to Aimee, none of that was raised as issues or concerns or risks during the mobilisation period, so we took it on face value that the scheme that was in train since 2009, it took a while to come about, which you may draw your own conclusions about whether there was a great deal of risk or concern about it from 2009 to 2015. That's quite a period of time, but, from what we've seen, the member that failed was never identified as a risk. I don't know if you could add anything to that, Colin. When we looked at the study, Feta analysis to carry out the study originally, we identified various elements of the First End language. Now, this full assembly consists of the end post that loads from the trust, goes into the end post of the trust itself, comes down, goes into the pin, then goes up the link members before going into the brackets, which are then connected to the main term. The areas that we identified at that time under specific assessment loadings, they were at risk where the welds and areas of the bracket plus were concerns over the ability of the end post to actually get rid of load. We had a workshop with Feta and we reviewed a number of aspects and, from that workshop, we developed a conceptual design, which was reported in 2009, which was to put a different system, create an alternative load path by connecting to the top chord and removing the end post and the link members from the load path. I was encouraged to do that. There were various discussions and we were asked to look at what we could then address, the critical overstress, which were in the welds and one section of the bracket just within the tower. That is the scheme that has been developed. We have to make alterations in order to enhance the welds. The words threaten the structural integrity of the bridge were used in various reports between 2009 and 2015 and the failure of all of this member. To me, my degree was in civil engineering a long time ago, but when you hear the words threaten to structural integrity, you run for the high ground. What was the expected mode of failure then that would have been envisaged in 2009? Were this work not to be carried out? We have obviously had a worst-case scenario, and yet it appears that no-one anticipated that except perhaps the engineers who first created the report in 2009 and identified it as such as threatening the structural integrity of the bridge and the failure of the pin. The seizing of the pin in place turned the bridge from a mechanism into a structure that the bridge was always not designed to cope with. That must have been envisaged, surely, given the previous to co-monarials failures and things like that that are in the background. Surely, that must have been looked at. We should restate that I am looking at the same reports that you are looking at. I am speaking to people that you will speak to later. A lot of those questions require the answer of the former bridge master, because at the end of the day he was responsible for that structure at that time. I go back to the advice that I have been provided that they obviously had an idea. It was embryonic. They revised it, because at £15 million it was deemed unaffordable. Their decision making after that, there is nothing wrong with what they did. They do what a lot of people who manage assets do. They looked at a fresh look at the perceived problem, they challenged themselves to find whether there is another way of doing this, and they came up with a solution. I assume, from what I have seen and the actions there after, that the risk was deemed acceptable. Otherwise, they should have flagged it as safety-critical work. As I said in my introduction speech, if there was anything safety-critical, they could have used their own reserves, which they had, or they could have come to Transport Scotland and asked for help. I have not been able to find any evidence of that, so I deem in consider that the risk was manageable. Any further questions, John? No, thank you, Lord. Can we just be clear then, so your assessment of the evidence is that there was no safety-critical work that was postponed or not undertaken because of cost constraints? They had a programme of work. The main committed schemes, and I will give you an example, there was a lot going on at the time, the Viaduct bearing replacement, anchorages, main cable investigations. The team considered those, the main priorities in terms of risk, and those were funded. We did not lose sight of the other work, or we did not lose sight of the other work. That continued, but the main safety-critical works were done. John, as a foreman— The main safety-critical works were done. Does that mean that there are any safety-critical works that were not done? No, I did not mean that. Okay, just to be clear, I think that we have to have the maximum clarity here to understand what has happened. Claire has been waiting patiently, but have you got a point? The word is used within the various reports that it threatens the structural integrity, which is a strong language that can be put in any report. Why are those words used, then, if, in your view, that was not a threat? It was a view of others, then? Yes, yes. But then the person that the report was written for would have considered that and made their own recommendation to the FETA board on what to do. So should we be seeking to get evidence from him, then? I think so, yes. I think that we will have plenty of opportunity to do that in the course of the inquiry. Claire has been waiting patiently to ask a question. Yes, I have a couple of supplementary statistics and evidence so far, and then my own questions, convener, if that is okay. Just to understand this in my own head, the articulation of the pin that was identified after the repair was done, was that as a result of the repair or was it just that the problem was identified at that point? When were you able to say that the articulation of the pins was last working properly on the bridge? Okay. The repair in no way influenced the articulation of the pin. The repair would have only aided to benefit that. If you can imagine, it supported by two truss end link members, one had completely failed, so I guess the pin would have been sitting not quite parallel, so that would have induced additional stresses into the member. The remaining sections have all been looked at at the north tower only, and that was what John Allude did to earlier when he mentioned structural monitoring equipment. We are investing a lot of time and money at the moment in putting in place a structural health monitoring system on to those components so that we have the confidence when we can open the bridge, and that is why the restriction to the seven and a half tonne vehicles is in place just now. The programme of works for that is that the north tower is completely functioning now, and we are getting reliable data through on that. From the north tower, as I said, the side spans are non-critical. We know about the broken link member, and the other link member on the other carriageway is articulating as well as it should do in terms of the design parameters. The south tower, the cabling works on the like associated with that are now all in place, and, in fact, the strain gauge monitoring system is, as we speak, just going live. So what we'll actually probably do around about now is a simulated load test on that to gather information. As I said before, the primary in somebody alluded to the 80 odd percent of the bridge is its dead load. The other major influence factors on it are wind, temperature and traffic, about a third, a third, a third. Now it's unfortunate in terms of where we are today, it's not windy and it's very stagnant, so that's probably the biggest influential load on the bridge. The temperature is fairly consistent, and the traffic, obviously, it's got load restrictions on it just now. So that was why we're looking at probably doing a simulated load test, as we speak just now, to try and force movement into that under controlled circumstances so that we can ascertain if indeed the other pins are articulating as we hope they are. Okay, so the problem with articulation of the pin could have been there before, which has any link with the data? It could have been, yes. Okay, that's fine, thank you for that. In terms of the £15 million project that was identified by FETA, had they gone ahead with that project, can you give us an estimate of how long the bridge would have been closed at that point in time? We have had a chat about that to also have our hypothesising because they hadn't finalised a design, but I think John and I, we had a wee debate about that, and we reckoned that it could be done over a number of overnight closures. So it would probably be in three months of overnight weekend closures, overnight weekend closures, yes. Okay, thank you. In terms of the monetary of questions, it's really about the whole decision-making process about closing the bridge, and I just wonder if you could talk us through the timeline. Obviously, it was restricted to single lane on 1 December. It then went to the engineering assessment and it then went to Transport Scotland and to the ministers, and it's just really to talk through that process. Being in mind, you've already said that safety and maintaining the integrity of the bridge were the two driving factors in that decision. Okay, I'll chat you through the timeline and the circumstances surrounding the recommendation to close it. So on 1 December, like I said before, we were hosting a site visit with a number of my colleagues out at the bridge. At around about 3.30 on that date, we received a phone call back in the office and myself and the bridge manager were requested to go and inspect this element because it was identified as failed. We did that, and as we're based at the bridge, that was undertaken within a sort of half-an-hour period. We then obviously realised the significance of this and the magnitude of the potential disruption that we were talking about here. We notified Transport Scotland at the same time between half-path 3 and 4 o'clock on the 1st. We then quickly engaged Fairhurst, who had a long historic experience not only of the bridge but of the Truss End Link Assembly componentry. That happened at 4 o'clock the same day. We had various telephone conference calls with Scotland's colleagues at Transport Scotland and Fairhurst to take advice on what that means for the bridge. By 9.30 that night, a contraflow was in place on the southbound carriageway. The reason that we put it until 9.30 from the de facto identification and a preliminary assessment was that we were heading into the peak rush hour period. A contraflow takes around about two and a half hours to safely install on the bridge, so that was the fastest time that we could proportionally get it on to take the load traffic off of that affected member. On the same night, the guys worked around the clock in all fairness. We engaged Arup, who is an independent checker. Again, the prognosis and basis to that was that, if I refer back to the bracket work that we are currently under in strengthening, Fairhurst were the designer and Arup were the checking party for that with Amy Managing it, so that was the logical team to take this forward. So at 11 o'clock that night, Arup were then engaged in order to work with us and our colleagues to do the check, and we undertook overnight monitoring at the other members that we could access. Now again, it was windy and dark, and that was the safest prognosis in terms of the people undertaking the inspection. That led us to obviously the contraflow situation, which led into the 2nd of December. Now I can keep chatting you through the timeline of how we got to full closure, if you want. On the 2nd of December, the teams that we had, based on the information, it's fair that you can imagine quite complex computer models that replicate and simulate the loading effects on the bridge, they updated those models to replicate a broken truss end link within that. That takes a little bit of time, and then you've got the various loading patterns and articulation movements to cater for. That analysis continued throughout the day and indeed overnight. At the same time, our team on the site were mobilised and they inspected all eight other areas to make sure that there were no similar defects or broken members elsewhere, which there weren't visually. However, we also felt it prudent to undertake non-destructive testing. We physically removed the paint from the affected member in the worlds, and we localised testing, which will give you indications if there are cracks present there or not. That proceeded throughout the day on the 2nd of December. On the 3rd of December, which was the day that it was recommended for closure, again, the teams on the design and the assessment side had been working throughout the night and into that morning. We had removed the paint and mobilised a non-destructive testing team to come out to site. They visited the site and did the testing on the single remaining link that was in place at the north-east tower. The results from that became available just after lunchtime early afternoon, and that identified the potential propagation of a crack in the one remaining link. That changed what the guys had to model in their analysis. That now meant that not just one of the twin links potentially failed, but that they had to model both links as failed. The only real conclusion from that was that the bridge required closure. The timescale for that was, again, various dialogues and meetings, because our offices are there and Transport Scotland were with us. By 4 o'clock that day, Amy submitted a written recommendation on the background basis and justification why the decision to close the bridge was proportionate, responsible and had the full support of independent experts. By 6 o'clock that evening, the independent parties had supported that decision and made written recommendation to Transport Scotland and the Scottish ministers. At 8 o'clock in the evening that night, we held an initial senior meeting with Transport Scotland representatives and ourselves prior to a briefing with the First Minister to chat through, again, the prognosis basis and risk-based approach that this needed to take. It is maybe just one point worth noting that this was not a decision lightly taken by either the engineers Transport Scotland or indeed the Scottish ministers. John Jones, who has been at the bridge for 35 years and has been experienced in the cable ban bolts, obviously the concerns with the main cables themselves over the years. Before we reached that conclusion, we all went round the room individually and said, how do you feel and are you happy with the recommendation? It is the most uncomfortable anyone has ever felt in that scenario. It was the most unpleasant or uncomfortable situation that John Jones experienced on the bridge. That was not a decision that was taken lightly. At 8.30 on 3 December, we held a briefing with the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister, the Cabinet Secretary and the Minister for Transport, to address the situation, which you can imagine. There was a bit of shock there at first, but in fairness to all of the cabinet, they were really balanced and supportive, understood what we were saying, asked appropriate and challenging questions, and by about 9 o'clock that night, a consensus was reached that the bridge should be closed in the grounds of safety and structural integrity to all traffic. That closure came into effect at midnight that night, and that was the closure that was in place throughout December. Thank you. Thank you very much. Some of which have been answered already, but if I can speak to the AMI representatives here or ask them to respond, it is unfortunate to say the least is it not that within six months of you taking over this contract, you will have this particular problem. Would you like to comment on that? I am sure it is one of the areas that I think AMI are experienced in, is in the maintenance of bridges, but I am sure I do not have any experience in terms of maintaining and strengthening major suspension bridges. In that context, would you like to answer my question, please? I would maybe counter that. AMI has significant experience on major structures, primarily in the UK. We led on the Hammersmith closure in London in the 2012 Olympics. We have led on Tinsley Viaduct strengthening and repair, and you are correct that the suspension bridges do not have a long past experience. However, if I take you back to when AMI tendered for this contract, we recognise that we have got lots of positives and, indeed, where we need to enhance that. That was the primary reason that Arup, who is the designer on the Queens, or the engineer's representative on the Queensferry crossing, was brought in as our partner for this commission. Representatives from Arup attended the competitive dialogue meetings, supported us throughout mobilisation, support us in taking design schemes forward, as I mentioned, to trust and link bracket strengthening works. They are an integrated part of our team. As our fairhurst, who have the long history on the bridge, that is the comprehensive team that we assembled. It is not the dream start that I would have wanted to the contract, to be honest, and I do not think that anybody would. However, I have to say that, often the best experiences come out of the worst situations, and I have to pay credit to both the teams in the office and out on site working in December. We had over 300 people that were safely inducted on to that site. No stone was left unturned in terms of scaffolding, welding resource. It was a privilege and an honour to work with people in those circumstances, and it is all credit due to them. It was an integrated teamwork approach with Transport Scotland, regular briefings to ministers. It is not the situation that any of us really wanted at all, but there have been a lot of positives come out of it. Indeed, the support of the communities that were affected by it, we have had best part of 2 million likes or whatever it is on Facebook. We have had people approaching us about how to change career and get involved in engineering. There are many positives to come out of it. There is a big negative impact, and we are still working through the challenges of that through the HGV industry, but if you want to add, John. One other little note regarding coming in and having this on your doorstep within the first six months. I have worked there 30 years through, I think, I have seen out three general managers, I think, as bridgemasters now. If you ask Barry next week what his first few months were like when he took over from Alexandria in 2008, we had a series of incidents within the first week of taking over regarding closures, problems with hires, problems with cables coming loose, a dropped object canopy that lost half of its equipment on the south wind carriageway. It was not a great start for Barry and us either at that time. To be honest, although it is massive and we have closed the bridge down for it, it is just another day at the 4th Road Bridge, unfortunately. It is a 50-year-old bridge, and it is a great structure, but you have to maintain it and keep it going. It is a bigger one, but it is just another day at the 4th Road Bridge. If we may just close that out as well, we need to remain mindful that 95 per cent of the staff that we are delivering the services at the bridge before June and before Amy took over are still there. It is the same people doing the same tasks and the same jobs enhanced by, I guess, a larger team that Amy is able to offer and the same supporting consultants. So you did not have any difficulty in putting together the teams, as they were, to design and implement the repair solutions, for example. It was all to hand. As I said, in the timeline from the failed member being identified in the early afternoon, by 4 o'clock that day, we had our design team ready and by 11 o'clock that evening, we had the design check team ready. We enhanced that through the appointment of an Amy technical director who has got more than 30 years as a chartered structural engineer. I would challenge anybody to do anything more than what we did. OK. Can I go back to Mr Russell's evidence a little earlier when he talked about installing structural health monitoring? Why wasn't that done when you actually took over operation of the bridge? Why do we have to wait for this incident to happen before that is put in place? To be honest, all the years I worked with FETA and previously before in the 4th Road Bridge Joint Board, we didn't install it then either. So it's really not an Amy problem as such. It's a difficult thing to do in the environment that we have to try and get that information back to what we have at 4th Road Bridge or what we had at 4th Road Bridge before Amy took over. We had conversations many a time in the senior management team before Amy took over regarding trying to link in with the structural health monitoring that was going in place on the new crossing. We hoped to then get some of that technology put on the bridge. But, as Scott and as Wayne have said earlier on, you have to prioritise what you do. We had a capital plan, which we called a wish list. Every engineer will tell you that's what they want to do. They want to go over every single thing that's out there and fix everything as if it's brand new. You can't do that. You've got limited scope to do that for access issues and for funding. Even when we had the money coming in from the toes themselves, we still had a wish list and it was quite substantial. So we hope that we'll be able to continue with the structural health model that we've got at the moment and enhance it going forward and move it on different locations on the bridge where we might think it's useful. Is it common practice that Mr Lees could answer this for the kind of monitoring that will be put in place in other bridge structures, perhaps older ones such as the fourth road bridge? This is something that is fairly new to me. In terms of experience of that very issue, we've had discussions. Richard, you can come in here to add to that. Certain older bridges have had systems retrofitted as technology has advanced, sometimes due to concerns about that they think something's wrong with the bridge and they want to know about it. And sometimes it's a niche thing, isn't it? An embryonic science, I would say, that it is not common or widespread in its use. It normally is a retrofit that when it's installed, when problems are identified within broken members or signs of distress, are noted in elements and so rather than repair, you install the monitoring. In this particular incident, the area that failed, it was not identified as overstressed. The actual element that was structural instability, that was at the top. If you have a link in a chain, this component has five links in that chain. The element that failed was actually the strongest link. And the element that was the 400,000 that has been spent to repair, the bit that was the structural instability point, that has been affected and is just about to be completed. In terms of instrumentation of this, these moving components, I've just replaced the same component on the Humber Bridge, but these moving components have a finite life. And there is a time to replace them, but the actual structural health and monitoring of these things hasn't been done widely. It is on the Queensbury Crossing, which is a 21st century bridge. With 21st century technology, we have the capability to put that stuff in place so that we're ready for these events in 50 years' time. But that wasn't contemplated in 1964. But it's available now. It is available now and would be a prudent thing to do on elements that are vulnerable. But that again is that would go through the, that would almost colour one's criticality and vulnerability assessment to say, rather than having to look at these things on a six-monthly interval by a visual inspection, we would have something that would be returning data to a computer that avoided someone having to go out to that location. Yes, I think it was Mr Russell that indicated how difficult it was to actually inspect this particular element of the bridge. And it was never discussed at board level either and during feta time or subsequently that something like this should be put into place. The strength of that particular element of the member, when assessed by Fairhurst, was unchecked by another independent consultant, was shown to have adequate capacity. And so that unless it's actually displaying signs of distress, you wouldn't go back there to look at that particular area of it. Okay, but in general terms, we're not just talking about this particular part of the bridge, but in general terms, introducing this kind of monitoring. Was that ever discussed at board level? What I can say is that we have a retrofitted dehumidification system, which is blown dry air through the cable. That's why we have the new bridge getting built was because of the problems that we thought we had with the main cable. So that's being retrofitted. We have acoustic monitoring on the cable to listen for breaks, et cetera. So again, that was retrofitted. A number of these schemes have been taken forward, and it's just a case of prioritising. In Richard's right, if you have something that's not seen as overstressed, then why would you need to do something about it if you're inspecting on a regular regime, which is what was happening? Could I ask what the cost of installing this is? So that the order of magnitude cost for the Queensbury crossing, and it is over, I think it's between five and 10 million. What about for the foot? What you're doing just now? So what has been done now, which is, and again, we are, this is a, and I can't comment on the cost of these items, but it is, in some ways, this is a single element that you are looking at to give complete coverage to the bridge on all of the elements that have been identified in a 60-year-old structure that was designed for half this loading. It's a needle in the haystack that you are actually looking at in terms of all of the elements you want to cover. So to give complete coverage of all of the areas, there's a very telling plot that I'm fair has to produce to which identifies the areas that are overstressed or would either, you would not satisfy current codes of loading, and it colours almost all of the bridge in. So that is what informs the inspection of vulnerability assessments that go on, but to cover the whole bridge in structural health monitoring would be an enormous task. We are sitting down with Amy at the moment to make recommendations of the crucial elements to say, okay, these are the ones that we, in the light of what has happened, let us make sure that we get coverage of moving parts and elements that would have a significant consequence in the event of failure. Have you got a figure to give us in terms of the structural health monitoring system? Presently, not, I'd be lying if I had it to hand to you, what I could do is give it to you after this meeting if that was acceptable. That's helpful, thank you. Any further questions on them? In that case, Michael, you have some questions? Thank you, convener. I ran a building company for many years and undertook most of our main work but occasionally did civil work, so I would like to start by complimenting all of you to undertake that work under stress, under duress, time pressure and difficult areas, weather conditions and working conditions generally. I think you've all done an exemplary job and I'm sure I can speak for the whole of the committee in saying this and I hope you'll take that back to your teams working on the bridge and I was quite frankly astonished that you managed to get it open again so quickly, so I think you're due great credit for that. I'm trying to understand what's the technicalities of the fall and I wonder, this pin has seized and is it the seized that's caused the breakage in the link or the breakage caused the seizure? Is the seizure a result of excessive load on that point preventing it from turning through frictional forces or is there a distortion there? What kind of event is it just metal fatigue that's led to this or was there a particular event, maybe high wind or whatever, that you're able to identify as the probable cause? Maybe you could speak, it's just so that I think it's very useful to the committee to get a more precise understanding of what's led to this. I'll give you the overview answer first and I'll probably hand over to Richard to give you some more of the technical aspects but first I really appreciate your positive comments and we will feed that back, it is really appreciated and as I said it's testament to not myself and others but the people out on site as you say, December was exceptionally windy, it wasn't a pleasant working environment for anybody out there so but the actual pin itself yeah as I said the bridge relies on a degree of rotation in these pins, you never have a perfect pin where there's no friction in it and you make design assumptions on what the level of friction is. Now obviously that pin's level of friction or restraint has increased over time and within that those first couple of days I never actually explained as well that we also engaged a specialist metallurgist to come out and inspect a failed member itself and his conclusive recommendation was that it was indeed a fatigue failure, that the reason for that was it propagated or initiated at the weld interface which is potentially the weak interface and that could have happened as a little bit of grit or just when the bridge was installed, not nobody really knows what could have initiated that, that then propagated along the weld and progressed into the member itself and gave you a very quick failure and that's the kind of crack or failure pattern you see. You see it beginning and there's a photograph somewhere in the body of slides you've got that you can see that, it begins at the weld, propagates into the member and you very quickly see a jagged pattern progress up through the member which is highly reflective of a fatigue crack but I'll let Richard explain more detail on the friction. I think the, so just to put the member in context, so that the link itself for permanent loads, it only really carries the weight of the deck between that end of the deck and the first hang-up, so that to revert to the comments about 90% or 70% of the capacity is day load and live load that applies to the cable because the actual traffic loads that arrive at the link are because of loads that are spread out over almost half of the mainspan, so it's a much longer loaded length and they pick up, so the actual variable loads are significantly larger than the permanent ones for this particular element, so that the, in the normal run of things, an overload type failure, so a particular event type failure with the wrong vehicle going over and that sort of thing would have, it had to be in the length of half of the structure and so it's highly unlikely that it was an overload that was causing it in normal operation, you know, so that if it was some sort of normal operation that was, but when the pin seizes the bridge tries to move almost under every single vehicle that passes the bridge, so that it tries to move backwards and forwards at a very small amount and that is why this, why the pins are in position, it is to allow that free movement because that movement is unstoppable, it is, has to be seen in the context of trying to hold up a track that's in the middle between towers that are a kilometer apart and those are the sort of the dynamics of what you're trying to restrain and that just won't happen with a member in bending and so that the, the loads of that just moving backwards and forwards if the pin is seized will just be gradually cycling that, the stress like bending a paperclip backwards and forwards and eventually it will go and so that there was, as soon as the pin had seized there would have been a finite life in terms of, of the, of the, of the link and, and, and, and essentially that it will, it will just gradually grow that crack and, and in terms of, of, of the history of that although you say okay it will gradually grow that crack that means that in the first instances it will be a very, very small crack that will be, would not be detectable in those six-monthly yield inspections, it would probably take about that sort of period or a number of months to grow from a, a, a, a crack that's detectable visually to something that has totally failed you know that it's the, the onset of the crack goes from very, it moves very, very suddenly from that moment forward it would have been helped in this particular instance in so far that the actual displacements are quite small and therefore the, it probably wouldn't have been growing in actual strains involved associated with developing these loads is, is actually quite small. Thank you that's very, very useful that's given me a much better understanding and in terms of the temporary solution can you talk a wee bit about how that was, how it was installed and, and how it was tested? It wasn't a temporary solution it was a solution to get the bridge back open but how that was installed was again a lot of effort people probably don't appreciate in terms of as John alluded to the access. Access is the biggest challenge out on the bridge and as John said that area is probably one of the most inaccessible areas you can get to because the only thing between you and that member is the river forth. So what we had to do was obviously provide the workforce with a safe access working platform to, to begin the work before we actually did it. Now we came up with two solutions one involved what's called hanging scaffolding and one called tower scaffolding. Now again I think there's a couple of pictures within your, your packs there of what I mean by that. Hanging scaffolding is like it says it hangs off of the bridge it's faster to install than the tower scaffolding which you build from the ground up and construct in a tower format. However we didn't adopt a hanging scaffolding access system at the broken member for the reason there was a risk there that they could have been a potential failure of the one remaining link that was in place and a quick drop of the bridge deck at that point with people working on scaffolding supported off the bridge was an unacceptable risk. So at that one location we adopted a tower scaffolding. What that meant was that we had to use a barge to actually transport all of the scaffolding materials from lanside out to the north pier defences. We had a team that were similarly barged out there every day and every night working on that with lights and everything to actually scaffold up the full height of the tower and I'm sure the committee members that were out there yesterday got an appreciation of how high up that is. We also undertook an exercise to barge out what's called a mobile elevated working platform. It's essentially a lorry with a big long reach basket on the back of it. You can imagine this is 50 metres up so it's a huge lorry with a huge extendable reach that was barged out with a full lifting plan adopted in place to lift that on to the pier defences and all this went on concurrently with the high winds and the rain and everything that was prevalent throughout December. So that work commenced at that area to provide access to the broken member. At the other seven locations we also undertook this hanging scaffolding solution like I say a bit faster to install because you've not got as much material and it hangs off the structure and again it's a stable platform for the teams to work there. Concurrent with all of that access work going on, the design of the splinter, the phase one repair, was completed and fabrication took place concurrently with the scaffolding work which meant that it actually worked in really well with the design check, certification, steel manufacture, fabrication. They arrived on site in Putnam Tandem with the scaffolding being finished and that's why we were able to open it so quickly. So again getting the steel out on to the bridge isn't as simple as just lifting it out, you need a specialist lifting plan, high abs to try and drop it through and again you're in a confined area trying to maneuver big bits of steel down through a bridge. It's much much different than building a new bridge where you have maybe factory conditions for certain components. So again the team worked hard to safely lower the splints in place. These were then tack welded in place but again we had a probably more than 40 welders on site working concurrently in all the areas as were the scaffolders. That was welded in place, again the work progressed day and night with lighting. The teams had to regularly stand down if you like because the winds got so high it was unsafe to work but what that meant is they just got off the scaffolding and waited until the control room indicated that the wind speed had dropped sufficiently to allow them to return. So like I say that that work progressed day and night and that was why the bridge was opened earlier than we first seen and it's just unfortunate that the rotation of the pin wasn't as we hoped otherwise HGVs would be on it today and that was the real process we went through. Thank you that's been very useful and could you talk then a wee bit about the longer term the more permanent, sorry I forgive me for using those words but the final solution then and you know have you identified that and can you explain a bit about you know how that was designed and what that'll look like in you know on the bridge so to speak. I'll give you a quick overview again and I'll maybe hand to Colin who's design lead for that part. On slide seven I think everybody has that one in front of them. There's a graphic visualisation of what phase two actually involves. So in simplistic terms it involves installing a new bracket system above the carriageway at each of the tower locations. The second part of that is we'll install a spreader beam below the top cord which is on slide eight and that will support the truss at that location. The final slide is slide nine and it's cables that will attach the top hanger to the bottom spreader beam if you like. The team will then jack the bridge up at that location to cater for its dead load which means that once that's in place HDVs can return to the bridge because they will be supported on this new arrangement. Having that new arrangement in place will then allow us to install a brand new truss end link assembly that will be designed for maintenance and accessibility and I guess an important point is through legislation when this bridge was built back in 1964. People I guess designed for best practice at that time but in the early 90s legislation around designing for maintenance and accessibility was introduced into the UK. That's had several iterations with the last iteration just in 2015 there called the CDM regulations which means that designers need to take account of access, maintenance and replacement in the future and that will be in place for the replacement truss end links. I don't know if you want any more detail from that of Colin in terms of- I think that's probably sufficient for our purposes and just finally could you just indicate the you know give us some idea of the cost of the work the splinting work kind of out so far and then the you know the cost of the final marks okay? Yeah I think where we are just now to to get up to the phase 2 solution in the one tower and all the the splints on all eight and everything else that has been done around this the cost of that repair will be around £5 million. With respect to the next phase we're still designing that so we really can't give you an accurate estimate but that will come in due course and I'm happy to share that with the committee as soon as it's defined. Thank you very much indeed thank you. Mr Hornby if I heard you correctly I think you said that the truss end links have just been replaced at Humber is that correct? They are slightly more complicated than these ones but they've just been replaced yes. I'm going to ask you can you explain if it was a similar problem? It was a similar the pins had worn a big hole in the to basically the had elongated they started off as a circular hole and the rotations that we've been talking about had elongated those holes so there was a cross member that was starting to bear on on concrete and there was fear that these pins would seize up and the thing would was replaced. Are there any lessons from that experience for that? That will certainly go feed through into the you know that we we the the repair that we designed for that is has been is now designed for replaceability in the future and maintainability of these bearings and measures to ensure that these pins are moving. Those lessons will go forward into the into the final solution for so that exactly the sort of the lessons learnt in that construction process are implemented in the final solution here. Okay thank you for that. I'm going to hand over to John Scott. And if I might just continue on that vein when was the need to repair those truss end links on the Humber bridge identified? It was they were identified five years ago four or five years ago. So the ones on the fourth road bridge were identified as some years before then. Can I ask you? So it was for but again I suppose the the the as I mentioned earlier in terms of the links of the chain the the elements showing the stress on the fourth were the actually connection the fixed connections into the tower and the main structural connection within the truss itself rather than the moving components. Yes I'm fascinated by that that it's not the weakest link in the chain that has failed but apparently so you say the strongest but in view and I would particularly under normal operation. Well that in itself poses a question perhaps the evaluation of what was the weaker and the stronger links was inaccurate given that that was the link that failed. It would be inaccurate you know that one has to base one's assumptions or one's analysis on on the the the the the inspections that you have and so that there was no evidence to suggest that those links were the pins were not moving. In normal circumstances but given the wear in the pin that you had seen elsewhere on the Humber bridge and the need that was identified in 2009 wouldn't have been unreasonable to that. Well that's the question I particularly want to ask you and Mr Clark as independent experts could this type of failure of truss in link have been anticipated given the the the assess need for a repair in 2009 given in your words that the bridge is horribly overstressed with the current loading and given the age of the bridge um could could this have been anticipated I mean I'm well understand the way of pins and rotating rotational circumstances. In the absence of of displayed you know that displayed signs of distress there were no displayed signs of distress in this in this element um there was assessments were done on in in pure um if it has this articulation areas were identified as overstressed in four potential loading scenarios so that you know accidents on the bridge that cause cause cues and things like this so those scenarios had been identified and were that were the basis of the the straight thing works that have been undertaken there was no evidence to support at you know that there was no evidence that these pins were not moving from the inspections that have been carried out. Would you just agree with that yeah absolutely fascinating um and can I just take you then to other types of of stressing and loading because purely by coincidence just over a year ago I was on the deck of the bridge and I was struck by the vibration in below the bridge of the presumed the pounding from the traffic on a Saturday afternoon which is very light um from the expansion joints and in terms of the wear and the damage to the steel of of as you said earlier bending a paper clip that constant pounding over a period I was inspired to become an engineer by visiting the fourth road bridge in 1964 as a child um that constant pounding of steel over that length of time would that in itself not have led to the deterioration in the steel there the construction of the Queensbury crossing is very timely the bridge is um or maybe not quite timely enough right people but Argan's father in the context of this particular failure but the detailing that was was around in suspension bridges in in the 1960s were not that you know the the consequences of those detailing that detailing is not as well understood as it is now and so that the number of joints and the consequences of the vibration of those do create issues with the structure none of which are in um I think you know the assessments have done today that under loading that it currently sees the the the um the the the bridge is assessed to be capable of carrying the bridge specific live loading that it carries at the moment um there are you know that there will be a time limit on on on the the um on on the the capability of the bridge to take that loading things have been done to address that so to ensure that that that is is is mitigated with the installation of the dehumidification the pounding of the joints generally speaking on the roadway um they those are you know that those are elements that are there there's thousands of those elements that see those cyclic loading um that they require a regular inspection regime um they will be they will see significant benefit from the moment that the queen's free crossing opens and there will be a reduced loading at that moment but when it opens yeah it won't see the heavy goods at all right thank you an important point as well is where the historic maintenance at Feta began and has continued into Amy the people everybody's rig familiar with the did it did it did it as you drive over the bridge and i think that's the the joints that you're talking about we have we have an ongoing programme of works that goes on throughout the year to address the worst affected members and that's informed by the inspections where that's why there's overnight contra flows on the bridge and people don't often see people working there it's because they're underneath and it actually we jack up the bridge at those localised points and put packing plates in to smooth out the bridge and that's an ongoing programme of work that Feta began and indeed the Amy have taken forward and therefore given the unexpected failure of this member given foregoing you must in terms of learning from this have a view as to why then i'm giving you a possible idea from the constant loading perhaps this was a less good piece of steel than all the other pieces of steel but why did it therefore unexpectedly fail because that's what we need to know the actual detailing of the the pin and where it's housed is so that there's the trust itself and there's the pins that come up on the outside of the trust so to be able to see the pin and whether it's moving or not and inspect it the actual moving pin should be moving within the link but it's actually not the case the links are fixed to the pin and and those rotate it and it moves relative to the trust box itself so the actual moving part you can never see is the way in which it's detailed so that in the in the in the replacement that the reverse of that will happen it will be put on the outside so that you can you can look at it if there's a problem with it you can take it out and put a new one in and just finally so i'm right if i understood you correctly you said that the timescale for this essential fault the crack to develop into a break would have been around six months and therefore this hasn't been a problem i mean the inspection regimes have worked is really what i want to hear you say but the failure was unexpected of this member for reasons yet to be defined i think that the reason that the failure of the member is because the pin has seized right and probably has seized for a number of years i see and it's only because the steel has been so good that it's lasted this long right is um ever been my and therefore finally we have now inspected all the other pins at the relevant trust end links and we have we believe discovered that they are still functioning that that is the the the strain the stress monitoring is going on it comes live as of yesterday evening and so we're getting so that for the north end of the main span we know that the one that broke is was was was rigid and the one that on the north west side which is free to move and so that there is not the imperative to to get the phase to repair on that immediately to allow the heavy goods back in on the on the south side we have no data to suggest it's not moving but we will have confirmation of that from the the strain monitoring in the next couple of days i'm intrigued by what you say that the problem the pin has not been functioning for a number of years i'm catching up with what you're saying in its rotation and rotating mode to allowing it to work as a so that the demand on a hot day and a cold you know so it will bend once in summer and once in winter type thing to to deal with that and that will be a yielding type bend that occurs if the pin is seized so the and it will you know so that in the context of a very small strength you know you have to do another a fair number of cycles before you break your your paperclip so that it will have seen a fair number my knowledge fails me but would the expansion joints have actually protected the structure even though they were in place well the expansion joints the the fact that the extensive expansion joints are nice and rusty and maybe offering slightly more restraint to the structure than was originally intended would would be helping but one has to see this in the in the in the in the i've worked on 20 suspension bridges this is a an immovable displacement it's a hold it back you're holding back you're fighting the main cable which is this round and you can't move that with a crowbar at the end of five meters of thank you very much thank you join clear did you have a short supplementary yes please because we were discussing the pin and when you were able to last see the articulation of the pin was working so and you say it could have been seized for a number of years what inspection process that was regularly carried out in the bridge could have identified that the pin was seized and is it possible at all in the inspection regime to you know how do you know they're working basically the um i think i think it's taken us quite a while to establish a a system that reliably tells us that the pin is seized or or or has high friction and that really has come down to being able to demonstrate that it never slips and to do that you have to have days of data to to discover the event that would have caused the thing to rotate because it has to overcome the friction in the first place so that that for relatively you know if it's got a high level of friction in there it won't it won't slip until you overcome it and so that you need to be there at that exact moment and be recording at that exact moment that slip has occurred which is why you have to rely on on on structural health monitoring to actually determine the that the thing is moving otherwise you're inspecting at six monthly basis to check that's not a crack so that there was nothing in the inspection regime that would identify whether the pins are moving or not previous to this no the visual inspection regime that was in place and is in place and as Richard explained there unless you were there at the precise moment that the pin rotated you wouldn't observe that okay thank you did you have a brief supplementary John I've solved that problem and stopped it from happening there was one installed on the top end of this link but in essence the actual location of the of the inaccessibility of this location to be able to get a grease nipple onto it it was it was virtually impossible to to to lubricate the bearing so well i've got nothing but respect for those who designed the fourth road bridge um with only its slide rules and um all tables um was that perhaps a design weakness um that there wasn't something to ensure the constant rotation of that bit yeah that there um and and again so that the actual physical demand of displacement as well that um uh there's of two two things have happened since those days there's the understanding of the vibrations or buffeting of wind that generate um at cyclic movements of the deck that would have not been in those calculations at all in those days there's the change in traffic loading um and the weight of the vehicle so that you know that a single vehicle um on the humble bridge so i don't don't know the figures for fourth bridge or a single vehicle on the humble bridge makes the whole deck moved an inch one way um as it gets to the quarter point and it gets to the three quarter point it goes an inch back the other way and that's a 40 ton vehicle so that that's directly proportional to the weight of individual vehicles causing that fretting of of that pin that would have never been perceived at the time that that was the original build could i just take issue with you there i cannot believe that wind loading wouldn't have been taken into a different i've given the feel of the takoma not a different sort of you know so that there were there's there's the the instability response of the of the of the takoma narrows and sort of um the wind tunnel testings that were done in in in in those days the understanding of turbulence in wind and the way in which that tunes to a structure rather than purely just being the structure itself creating the term turbulence like on to common arrows and that wasn't understood in in in in those days thank you q shavonda jewis question mr honby obviously we're talking about that one pin and when you said the way it had been designed you couldn't see and it but obviously the way that it's repaired you will be able to see is that simply for that pin and the rest of the pins you still will be able to see the the the my recommendation would be that all the although all those linkages get replaced um because the the one has shown itself to be time served the all of the others are ticking time bombs in in to a greater or lesser extent they should all be repaired having worked out what the actual um the the the best solution is for that one location once you'd implemented on on on on all all eight corners and to your knowledge is that planned that is planned yes yeah of course uh we want this bridge to remain open for the foreseeable future and have a long long life so yes we will act on that advice it seems a sensible and prudent thing to do given what we know now and it's not a you know that the actual works that involve you getting material to the underside of the deck can be done at night or weekends and is that cost because you talked about the phase one costs of five million but you weren't quite sure of of the next cost would that work be in those costs or is that future work that'll be additional costs and and we'll work up the design um we'll get costings we'll put up for consideration of ministers i'm sure they'll they'll see the the merit in it and we've got we'll find a way to do this through our existing our existing budgets i'm sure i hope to to proceed with this spring summer i think we shouldn't shouldn't wait around for another incident when you have those costs of health could you provide them to to the convener okay david thank you convener can i take the witnesses back to 2010 the fetter decision to initially go ahead with a proposal to replace the trust and linkages appreciate individuals here not from fat and we will obviously get fetter to speak for themselves and the board clearly thought it was important to go ahead with this they went to the point of advertising for consultants perhaps your best place mr lees to advise us were the consultants ever appointed no um so i've done a lot of digging through the archives um and i've got a story a timeline on that um not a story a timeline yeah i'm reassured it's not a story facts would be what they want for always the facts yeah so they put out um a contract notice to make um the industry aware i'll copy that here um so that went out um let's just see it's basically just described the bridge and and the likely work involved and that was may 2010 so then in the meantime they're working up interest in the job there's lots of contractors and consultants coming back saying we're interested so there's lots of records of acknowledgement of interest then around um i think it was September there seems to be a change of heart and uh i found an email from uh exchange between mr colford and calling clark here where there was a discussion about are we sure this is the only way to do this and it's clear that the decision or the conclusion was the scheme as it stood was unaffordable at the i think there was a range of 10 to 15 million pounds put in so then a dialogue developed where yes there is a no way of doing it which then led into led into the uh the scheme that that's being delivered now so once that decision had been made um fettig put out a contract notice to cancel the works uh their intention to do the design consultancy works and all all uh tender perspective tenderers were notified and that's that's where it ends the trail um and the the new scheme takes over and then the feta records there there's a it's a as an ongoing issue for a number of years there was a um it would appear to have been a lot of dialogue and exchange between the designers which fairhurst and the checkers which took a good good time to resolve and that then led once that was that dialogue was completed that then led to the scheme that was trialled in may of last year and then the subsequent works which are ongoing now is that not i know you can't speak for feta and obviously they will speak for themselves i think when they come before us is that not a strange way of doing things you know a board and professionals have a long discussion to say there's a need here to go and look at the trust settlement linkages to appoint consultants who actually advertise them and suddenly mysteriously this gets cancelled can i ask i don't know if you were in the same role in 2010 no no so it's difficult probably for you to answer for transport scotland can you give me your view on what transport scotland and scottish governments view on this was and categorically can you tell me if transport scotland and the scottish government advised recommended and told feta to cancel this contract to advertise the consultant one important fact to remember is that feta were in charge of that bridge we didn't get involved in decisions about programme or what schemes progressed our role was light touch governance when when in terms of funding that was a real role following the removal of tolls in 2008 notwithstanding that we were there to support him and there's there's much evidence there i can see the former bridge chief bridge engineer of transport scotland was a regularly in contact and over across at the bridge to help the guys do peer reviews and the like i must say that we have we had and we still do have through Amy now but we had an excellent relationship with feta and their staff and considered them for straight they were in a difficult situation there was a lot going on in 2010 the cable were a problem there was the anchorage these were substantial projects as john mentioned earlier there was a bit of the we've done a programme this is our capital programme we've approved it it was a little bit of a wish list and i've obtained evidence to show how that that the feta capital programme around then was basically prioritised by feta it's quite impressive what they did that there's a there's a board paper of the 16th of december 2011 called review of capital projects they go on to obviously highlight that the comprehensive spending review has come back less than their proposed amount i come on and talk about that question later i just want to know specifically about decision making i appreciate you weren't in post then who was the your equivalent in 2010 when this decision was made we wouldn't have been involved in this decision my my the equivalent would have been a chap called graham edmund who was my previous head of the unit but he wouldn't have been involved in any of this this was a contract let proposed to be let by feta transfer school and did not get involved in that kind of governance i understand that i mean but clearly feta we understand the rule that feta had over the bridge but clearly scottish government were a hundred percent responsible for this no one suggested that scottish government didn't have responsibility for the force crossing in 2010 when you weren't personally there we had a responsibility for funding the governance and the maintenance the operation and all the design work that had to be done and all that that was feta okay the point i making and you might not have that information because i appreciate you weren't in post i mean did the scottish government reject in any format a meeting by phone or by email to say that this project should not go ahead i haven't seen any evidence to that that effect right obviously we'll ask the same question to you know to feta at work stage obviously this work didn't go ahead because the the consultants weren't appointed so in one level it's quite difficult to assess what would have happened if you'd appointed consultants and the work could been carried out but but presumably the terms of reference were quite clear you've mentioned it was advertised has transport scotland analysed carefully the terms of reference of the 2010 proposed work on the trust end links we've obviously seen that but in terms of further consideration no feta decided to drop the scheme they come up with an alternative that was passed over through the mobilisation period to Amy and that was delivered and i repeat the statement i made earlier about at no time through the mobilisation period was this ever the the trust end links identify as a big issue yes and i to understand that i'm i'm not looking for guilty people i'm merely trying to get the timeline quite clear because there is i mean in clearly it's difficult for you to answer some of the points that i'm raising so in terms of the terms of reference transport scotland hasn't done a full analysis of that in terms of the 2010 terms of reference of the report that feta wished to carry out no no that was a close matter for feta and their consultants first right so is it possible to do a comparing contrast with the work they were suggesting and the work that's currently being carried out possibly yes if that would provide any merit i mean is it possible that you could do at least a basic attempt for this committee because that information is quite crucial i think in this inquiry we had we had a look at the proposed scheme at a distance because we as you can understand during the last month and a half we've had to let's say assimilate a lot of information the proposed scheme introduced many benefits but also introduced many dis benefits the key one being that the new connection was susceptible to vehicle strike and and i don't know how much that was considered call and can perhaps advise but given that we would have to put up an awful lot of barrier to protect the new linkages arrangement but it was at an early stage it was embryonic i don't know if you could confirm if there was anything really further to the 2009 workshop that laid out something drawings no approvals in principle yeah effectively the 2009 workshop we discussed the various options for actually taking the link in replacement forward and there was nothing went beyond that the job went it was going to tender then can i ask the obvious but important question which i'm sure motorists and fife and beyond and halls companies would want to ask if the work was carried out in 2010 might we not have that added bridge closure in 2015 we can hypothesise about this but i have to put some caveats in there because i don't know what they were actually going to do so the contract notice is fairly vague right there's a workshop report that gives a preliminary preferred solution that didn't say how the arrangement works so if i assume that the new arrangement which wasn't designed was subsequently designed and it happened to be constructed and it made that member redundant then yes you can say that of course it's logical the defect wouldn't happen because it wouldn't have been there it would have been redundant but that's not where we are those decisions weren't made sure and i appreciate that you haven't done as you very honestly said a full analysis of this but nevertheless i'm sure the committee would appreciate some further comments on this i appreciate times going on can you ask a couple of just quick further questions just before you do that dude clear did you have a supplementary on the specific point no i came in after that that's fine thank you you mentioned i think tool the tools came to end in 2008 i understand i'm understanding talking to those when all the fet at the time is that toll income was crucially important and that basically the toll income by and large went towards maintenance the bridge and in addition fetta were able to borrow on the basis of proposed volumes of traffic which is presumably fairly straightforward to predict and was that a problem when i'm not making a case for an against tools i think our votes are fairly clear on this the point i'm making is did that dislocate or affect badly the maintenance regime on the bridge because the steady source of income plus the money that was borrowed went straight into maintenance then there was a change falling tolls coming to an end what's your perspective on that mr lees from what i've seen there was a steady income from the tolling as i said around 10 and a half million pounds a year if you look at the the funding levels from scottish government we obviously made a commitment to to fund them falling toll removal the funding does is not constant it goes up and down in accordance with need and also how much money was available following UK spending review sorry because it's not meant to be a trick question i'm just generally on it but do you know what the percentage if you take what you're spending a maintenance report fetta spent do you know what the proportions are be roughly similar i i said in my opening statement that they're roughly the same year on year if you average what we've provided it's about i think 12 and a half million a year they were getting but on average 10 and a half million a year but notwithstanding that the bridge given its age may have required more urgent work made ahead more pressing needs there might have been safety critical works but we were always there to help if that was the case well the figures i have and i'm happy to be corrected if you the figures i have is that your capital grant was 13.8 million is that correct over a three year period and that's only 58 percent of what fetta were spending i mean is there a different analysis you've got maintenance need from fetta's days the 58 percent figure related to a capital program for that three year period that fetta board approved that was done in isolation of the spending review and any outcome from the UK settlement that obviously was difficult for fetta to deal with in terms of now they have to make a bid for cash whereas in the past they had their own income stream so i appreciate that that was a difficult issue for them i found evidence of the submissions for comprehensive spending review our approach is totally different their approach was here's everything we want and that that was their program what they approved we build up from the bottom um we uh i've got a note of this we we highlight the minimum funding requirement for maintenance and the safe operation of the asset and at the same time you know we we we the works required to maintain the structural integrity of the bridge and then we look at the risks of not doing that work and the like so and that's something barry and his team were very very good at and and did subsequently because yes we couldn't fund the full budget aspirations john's advice that a bit of that was a wish list but we covered the main priorities and um and the team were able to manage the risk and i'll refer you to the their paper review of capital projects 16th of december 2011 and you'll see that we covered the main ones and they used risk analysis techniques to decide what other ones and the priority of those should be preceded the point i'm making is was spending on maintenance higher during the fetter regime than it currently is now my understanding is it was from the figures i have produced that looks similar although year on year variations so you don't recognise this 58 figure that i mentioned earlier no i recognize it as a figure quoted in many of the fetter board papers saying that transport Scotland had awarded a budget settlement for capital works for a three-year period that's 50 percent a 58 percent cut on what they the program the capital program for those three years that they had approved yeah i'll finish on that convener perhaps i would certainly welcome mr lee's sort of suggestion that he would provide some analysis of the terms of reference of the 2010 fetter report that would be very useful and to do some sort of comparing contrast or what they were suggesting the work was should be required in the work that's being carried out thank you david and mr lee's if you were able to furnish the committee with the other information that you've made reference to in your evidence that would be very helpful i've provided a to the clerks a full pack of information including my timeline which would be very helpful in many of these issues but i would also provide anything that's required that's much appreciated can i just ask you then in 2010 fetter had advertised for consultants to undertake a piece of work that would have replaced the trust end linkages that's correct and then in 2011 there's a decision taken not to proceed with that work is that correct that's correct okay and you indicated in your earlier evidence that there were no safety critical works that were not undertaken because of budgetary constraints am i right in that understanding yes okay could ask you finally then was it reasonable in your opinion and i'm happy to allow the panel to answer this question as well to give their view was it reasonable for fetter to take that decision not to proceed with that work i i believe so i don't find anything wrong with the approach fetter took to manage their their their forward programme of work they followed a risk-based approach which is commonly used for asset management purposes okay that can i ask the same question to each of the witnesses mr clerk do you have a view i have a question for me to answer because as a consultant real one of several consultants working on the bridge so i'm not partied to all the information that fetter had at the time so it's not a question i don't feel i can answer that right mr heinshaw convener my view having reviewed the evidence and the information in the evidence pack is that this scheme appeared fourth or fifth in the list of priorities that fetter had and i think based on the evidence presented in the fairhurst report and the workshop and that it was tolerable and appropriate for them to look for a more cost effective and less disruptive solution on the basis that the solution from the workshop was clearly not fully developed and any appointment of any consultant would have looked to have reviewed that and may well have had it gone forward from the contract notice not taken forward the workshop recommendation and come up with something different which i find most likely that the decision to take it forward on a slower programme as was done by by fetter to be appropriate it is interesting to note that fetter never brought it to us as a safety critical piece of work that was urgently needed funding beyond the capital grant that we had given them at the time and and i feel that he's germane to a lot of the arguments because some years later when additional funds were needed urgently to take forward the cableband bolts we were more than willing to listen or my predecessor was willing to listen and take that forward and so it's an interesting concept we have debated what would have happened if these works had been taken forward we also need to consider what would have happened had fetter brought them to transport scotland and and asked for additional money to do them and had presented evidence that had persuaded us that yes they were urgent and they were needed to do that. John, I will bring you in once I've heard each of the panelists Mr Arnt. Obviously I can only factually comment on after June when Amy became involved but based on what I've seen and this is what I've seen is that the assessment report identified these as not being overstressed that was independently validated by another consultant. All of the inspection records today indicate there to be no perceived problems at that area so on the basis of that the decision that fetter made would seem proportionate. Okay and Mr Russell? I think you'll find as an ex fetter employee and senior manager I'm probably going to say fetter made the right decision based on the information that was provided by the report which was that element was not overstressed we took forward the work that was going on on an overstressed element which was the bracket and that was agreed and put forward so I think the decision was correct. Okay thank you Mr Russell and Mr Hornby. A potential outcome of the study could have been the recommendation so we're slightly prejudging what that study would have come up with so that the commission for the consultant might well have recommended that exactly the local strength thing that has been undertaken of the overstressed element would have been what they would have recommended at the end of that study rather than the wholesale replacement of the link. So my question was whether given what the information that was available was that decision that was taken by fetter a reasonable one? I think I would agree with John Russell here that there was no evidence of distress in the elements of the link below so that the localised strength thing that has been undertaken was proportionate. Okay thank you John did you want to come back in? Given the consensus but nonetheless I'm particular for Fairhurst and Colin Clark well the threats to the future structure and integrity of the bridge has outlined as identified in 2009 and 2010. My question was why use those words if threat to the future structure and integrity if you don't mean them and my question was going to have been and probably still remains. Do you believe that Transport Scotland engineers or indeed the Scottish Government understood the threat because when engineers tell you there's a threat to the future structure and integrity I would have thought that bumps it out in the priority list called me old-fashioned but you know and therefore given that the risk analysis techniques that were they don't mean to be horrid about but you're all saying we're absolutely fine but given that the bridge and the member failed will there be a future re-evaluation of those risk analysis techniques given that they didn't work? Maybe if I just initially I was talking about Feta Feta's procedures right Feta's bridge till last June so it wasn't the Scottish Government engineers that were looking at this proposal it was Feta engineers they decided on what proceeded or not and maybe Mr Hornby would expand on your answer the evidence that was presented in 2010 was that there was over stress in particular elements and a wholesale replacement was the answer. The scratching of head was done say okay we have many other issues with this bridge and the immediate structural integrity question that was posed by the the fairhurst and the independent checker was that these particular elements that are at the very top of that linkage are the ones that are suspect and need to be addressed and those have been addressed it has taken five years for those to be addressed but they are on stream now with completion anticipated in the next month or so so that on that evidence and without any signs of distress elsewhere you wouldn't if you were if you were looking for things to do on that bridge you wouldn't have started saying I need to take out this thing in its entirety here on the basis of the immediate risks that you are being threatened with you know that the element that was identified as being at structural risk and of course you know the one that was said okay this is the structural problem that has safety implications that has been repaired and strengthened and given your knowledge and would you accept that the fairhurst assessment of the elements that need to be replaced was the correct one the that the on the basis that the the of no distress being observed elsewhere that was the correct assessment at that time thank you very much now we were due to finish this session at 12 o'clock given the importance of this issue in fact I have another member who has some questions I'm going to allow this session to overrun and I'm keen that you don't feel constrained by the time constraints so please ask her questions as you would normally talk over to you thank you miss lees at the start you mentioned the toll by 10.5 million I think is what you put it down to and the figures from the FETA board for the grant funding fallen the tolls have shown that in 2007 eight both capital and revenue was eight million pounds could you explain that just bear with me I have misplaced the document with the uh the funding levels here we are right so we were talking 2008 nine 2007 eight so again the tolls were just have come to an end so what I'm trying to get to is was there still revenue from the tolls coming in or was it simply for that year there was eight million pounds paid in grant funding to FETA I have got a document that summarises all the FETA accounts so in 2008 nine there was no income from the tolls but there was a seven eight sorry seven eight there was a toll grant toll income was 10.2 million in 2007 stroke eight so that eight million then would be on top of the toll revenue correct the eight million for it was given from grant funding paid to FETA in 2007 eight four point five million was capital three point five million revenue and that was probably um for a scheme probably that what scheme would that have been eight thousand or there was probably some um and still is some residue regarding um the the old eight thousand which is now the b800 upgrade in the m90spar FETA were involved in funding for that because when the FETA order was introduced in 2002 there was scope for the money coming in from the tolls not just to go to the operation maintenance bridge but to also to go to some other projects that would alleviate congestion over the fourth so including things like parking rides and road linkages either side which that was one of them so there was a fair bit of cost involved in that as well and obviously with the tolls coming off in February there was the residue of the rest of that financial year so some of that money will be in there as well which is sort of where you're going to yeah it's it's to do with that as well so there was an amount of money within that that had to keep staff paid for example on the revenue side from the early February through till the end of the financial year and similarly with the capital there was residue of works that would have to be taken forward without being used um from toll money because that ceased to cease to happen okay well that explained that but in 2014-15 then the capital money that's paid goes down to £1.7 million pounds now that seems a bit odd when the bridge is older as we've all talked about the traffic flow is continuing to increase we've increased the tonnage and each gv is going across the bridge and yet the capital grant that has gone to Feta is £1.7 million and it's been at a high of £8.7 million so what would be the reasons for that I understand obviously the contract was taken over in 2015 but what would be the reason for 2014-15 having such a drop in the capital funding I believe and we know correct me if I'm wrong that there was reserves and we Feta had capital reserves uh is that right and we asked them to use them instead of as you'll be aware um Ms Ms Nicholson is it Nicholson is it you can call me whatever that's MacMahon but I'm sorry my apologies um Feta had considerable capital reserves and the intention was um the bill meant that the dissolution of Feta Feta's assets and liabilities would pass to the Scottish ministers so it was agreed that um they would use some of their capital reserve to fund some of their projects and draw down on it in lieu of receiving capital grant from us now I haven't got the exact figures of what we gave them that that year the total grant revenue in capital in that year was 6.82 million but the um the capital side of that was reduced so that they could draw on their reserves okay and that would be normal practice I presume it was the conditions of the grant letters going back to the days when Transport Scotland provided the grant was um should Feta have not spent all the amount of money we gave them they could carry that over uh add it to their reserves and that money could be used for the maintenance of the bridge okay and and for a number of years Feta did carry considerable amounts of uh capital reserves um at one time running into the tens of millions and then slowly over the last seven eight years being drawn down I think at the end of the period when all the uh actuarial um workers being done the hand back at the moment to the Scottish ministers will be in the region of 3.2 to 3.4 million okay so they they still had reserves to take forward monies that's very helpful thank you if you need specific details on the amounts of reserves um they're either in the pack that scotley's has given in the breakdown or they can be provided that's very helpful thank you very much um I'm going back to the current programme of maintenance then um and for the upgrading work on the bridge what's the budget for that year on year and can it be fully funded by Transport Scotland we took over the um the Feta programme that's been handed over to Amy um we've uh in terms of that market you can perhaps come in later and advise the sort of the the scale of that in the schemes that we are doing we've um announced the budgets for the the following year um they are reasonably healthy so yes we are confident that you know we can fund the needs of this bridge going forward and uh we are committed to doing that um in terms of this year's budget can you explain Mark sorry that uh the works that are ongoing um this year's budget um from 1st of April this year for the financial year is about 14 and a half million for this year what we've done is set out a prioritised list of schemes in order to address that budget there's a balance between routine and cyclic maintenance and what was formerly Feta called capital projects we obviously had during mobilisation the Feta 10 year investment plan and we've taken cognisance off that we obviously informed that with our own engineering decisions and things like the trust end links that come up that will feature in that programme um but some of the other capital works that we have ongoing or programme for this year is motorisation of the existing gantry system that's there that's the cradle that allows you to traverse along the bridge below it and installation of a new gantry system that will very much speed up access and as we've spoken about before access to this component is very difficult the gantries will aid that significantly um there's other capital works programmes associated with the suspended span under deck access platforms where the people that were out yesterday will have walked along the the kind of mesh panel system those are obviously getting towards their life expiry date so there's a scheme to replace them with a more modern system it's very enjoyable i'm sure um the sallow wire um which is a safety line that you can see in the photos there that you walk along the bottom cord currently to get to the trust end links it's 23 24 years old that's getting replaced right now on site so um that's one of the schemes we've taken for it not that it was unsafe but all these things reach a life expiry and safety critical things are essential um there's a scheme to replace the south anchorage storage facility that was demolished as part of the cable inspection works um and there's the ongoing routine cyclic maintenance as I said before to actually jack up these joints at overtime become um or they drop down slightly to give you the repetitive did it did it effect that that ongoing happened throughout the year so I couldn't narrow it down to four or five schemes because there's honestly the best part of a hundred activities within that programme but they are all assigned their own budgetary requirements and taken through the approvals process with transport scotland and we're spoken at length of how feta came to prioritise things in the past and you don't have to go back over that but is that a similar process to you would use or do you use a fairly different process I'm not sure the process feta went through in all honesty but the process we do is we take account of what feta produced in terms of their capital programme we look at the basis of the defects on the bridge need for access improvements in technology and all the like and on that we make an informed decision and put that forward to transport scotland in the format of an annual programme that demonstrates how the money is allocated to each scheme and the programme for delivery now some schemes obviously don't get delivered in a single year and take a couple of years to to take forward so there's for example maintenance painting on the bridge um that was one of the previous feta schemes it's one we're looking at but you need to do it in a trialled manner and phase because again access and systems and marine environments need trialled so it's very much a proportionate response but it is a regimented procedure we go through very formal that that is submitted by dates dictated within our contract to transport scotland for approval and then subsequently taken forward and the projects that feta had established in their capital plan as as they would call it has that still been adopted or is that simply what we start from scratch we've honoured all of the on-going contracts and that leads me I guess back to the the bracket strengthening work that was on going that was the only project capital why sorry there was the gantry motorisation and the bracket strengthening work both were fully honoured and taken forward in that respect and again the guys at feta and john and the team like I said 95 percent of those people are still there so it's not that it's discarded by any manner of means but it is a co-ordinated effort and we set out very succinctly in a structured manner how the budget is to be spent that year for approval I presume when you can correct me if I'm wrong because you know that you wouldn't adopt everything because no one would you know you look at your own priorities you see how how that goes but in your own plans for the year regardless of you know the unfortunate position you were left in at the end of the year you would have looked at the trust and seen what you could have done then so was there a plan to do anything with those what we've been through what was happening with feta what they had decided what then went against so we went through all of that what was that in any which way on the as I said before we were taking forward the strengthening of the member that was identified is overstressed that member that did fail wasn't overstressed but I guess these things take time we're still in the middle of getting this bracket strengthening work in place and there might have been a review after and things would have been looked at but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to say just now whether they would or they wouldn't that's the honest answer but they weren't as I'm because you took over a contract so when you're bidding for that contract and you're talking about works when you get that contract and you've identified your priorities that wasn't one of them no I mean you got to remember that this is a obviously a major suspension bridge it would it would not be prudent to come in and discard all of the work or the prioritisation that's been done before by an experienced team so you take the best of both worlds you learn from that and you bring any other engineering knowledge that you can to inform that and that's the approach that's being taken absolutely thank you do members have any further or final questions clear yep it's taken it back a wee bit sorry to the question that mr stewart had mr lees you were talking about the decision in december 2011 to review the capital projects as I understand and Feta undertook a risk analysis based on a number of areas obviously with safety and structural integrity of the bridge at the heart of what they were deciding in your opinion was that risk analysis robust and was there any independent accreditation of the process that they went through at that stage I do believe it's robust I don't know the answer to the second part of the question whether it was verified but the rigor and the governance would have come from the Feta board so the bridger master would have prepared a report on this and he would have asked for a number of actions at the end of that report and I assume at a board meeting they would have applied rigorous governance and then consented to that approach but I go back to something I said before have high regard for the team that were at Feta they knew what they were doing they were they were good and thankfully the majority of those staff are still with us and are continuing to do a very good job in this difficult significant incident we're dealing with that's a wrestle were you involved in that process at all for the risk analysis fortunately not because I remember the guys taking away and having to work on it several nights and they weren't enjoying the process memory serves and you can check with barry and chris next week but memory serves they did have independent people doing it as well I couldn't say for it my guess would be atkins but I can't remember exactly the detail on that but I'm sure you can ask them next week and it kept them awake for several nights so the weekend just going through the figures but they came up with the right results in the end and we might see a priority forward with that thank you okay thank you john can we be brief please to get my head around this completely mr hornby i'd like to ask you so in your view the the thing that caused the failure of this member was essentially the seizure or seizing in place of the pin the fact that it wasn't able to move freely and that over time perhaps a period of years led to the the failure of the member and the break in it correct thank you and and to be fair it couldn't reasonably easily have been foreseen there was no mechanism to check that the pin was moving thank you okay thank you john thank you for that succinct answer mr hornby are there any further points that our witnesses would like to make and place on the record before we close okay in that case it only remains for me to thank you very much indeed for your attendance this morning and I think I speak for all members when I say that the we're very impressed with the quality of the evidence that we've received that you've set a high standard for the the rest of the inquiry so thank you very much indeed I'm now going to suspend the meeting briefly to allow the witnesses to leave the room thank you colleagues I will now resume this meeting of the infrastructure and capital investment committee agenda item three is subordinate legislation the third item for today is the consideration of a negative instrument public service vehicles registration of local services scotland amendment regulations 2015 ssi 2015 slash four two zero paper five summarises the purpose and prior consideration of this instrument the committee will now consider any issues that it wishes to raise in reporting to the Parliament on this instrument members should note that no motions to annul have been received in relation to these instruments I now invite comments from members there are no comments from members in that case is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendation in relation to these instruments we are agreed agenda item four also subordinate legislation the committee will consider another negative instrument at agenda item four which is the housing scotland act 2014 commencement number five in consequential provision order 2015 ssi 2015 slash four three zero paper six summarises the purpose and prior consideration of this instrument the committee will now consider any issues that it wishes to raise in reporting to the Parliament on this instrument members should note that no motions to annul have been received in relation to these instruments I now invite comments from members there are no comments from members in that case is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendation in relation to these instruments we are agreed in that case I now move this meeting into private session