 Maen nhw ymddych yn amlwg. Efallai fod yn cyntafol ameddwyr drougfaluedd Pwyddeniaeth. Efallai fod yn gwneud i ddim yn bwyny ag ein modsofyn Material Phone yw eu gweldu'r brosgol. Er mwyn yn flwyddyn wrth gwrs i unig o'r format digital, y byddai yn cymhwyllwch ar ôl mewn gwyddoedd. Efallai fod yn cymdeithasol ar 뜨ndor James Donnan a David Stuart. Mianni will be attending this morning's meeting as a substitute member of the committee. I would like to welcome Siobhan McMahon as a new member of the committee and invite her to declare any relevant interests. It's nothing to declare, convener of, than what's already my register. I'll also take this opportunity to thank Mary Phee for her extremely worthwhile contribution to the work of the committee over the past few years and to wish her well on her new committee. The second item is consideration of the Harbours Scotland Bill. The committee will now consider the Harbours Scotland Bill at stage 2. I welcome Derek Mackay, Minister for Transport and Islands and Chris Wilcock, Head of Ports and Harbours Scottish Government. I invite the minister to provide an update on issues related to the bill since the stage 1 debate. I wrote to the committee on the 16 June in response to the stage 1 report, published on 5 June, and I like to outline what progress has been made in relation to the ONS and the non-statutory guidance on mediation. A few remains at the repeal of section 10 to 12 of the Ports Act 1991 to remove the Scottish minister's powers to require certain trussports. That is those with a minimum annual turnover of £9 million to prepare privatisation proposals should achieve a aim that the trussports are not categorised as public corporations by ONS in the future. The bill is primarily to resolve a technical issue, i.e. to stop borrowings of affected ports scoring upon the budgets of Scottish Government, despite the fact that we have no control over what is private financial transaction. It does also remove a level of uncertainty for those ports affected, and that confirms the trussport model as part of the diverse range of ports ownership structures operating in Scotland. Our view of the ONS decision on this matter was that the removal of section 10 would mean that the trussports would not fall within this classification as public corporations. Indeed, the wording of the ONS review in 2013 highlights that the remaining powers that ministers have to block voluntary privatisations were not sufficient themselves to warrant classification as public corporations, at that point referring to the status of the smaller trussports. We wrote to the ONS in 15 July, putting forward our case and requesting that a definitive decision on whether the bill will achieve this aim will be made. A decision from ONS has not been received and a follow-up reminder has been sent requesting an update as soon as possible. We will continue to press ONS for a decision and will update the committee immediately it is received. In the interim, a copy of the paper sent to ONS can be shared with the committee and will ask officials to ensure that this is passed across. Some progress has been made in the development of non-statutory guidance on harbour dues mediation with officials holding a series of informal discussions with ports on harbours to seek their views. Following collation of this, a more formal consultation is planned for later this year. It is a very clear issue that we wanted to address and primary legislation was the route for addressing this as previously described and explained to the committee. There was wide support for the bill from the industry and this remains to be the case, therefore no amendments have been tabled for today. I now invite questions from members. Mr Johnson. Thank you very much, convener. The minister is aware that, as explained at stage 1, my reason for support on the bill was the reason that was set out in relation to the ONS judgment. Tell us that you have not had that response yet. Would a failure to obtain that response have the effect of delay in the process of the bill to stage 3? It could, but I would rather have the information back from ONS. There is still the benefit of securing the transport model anyway. It is still a good-to-do bill and it is a good-to-do technical amendment, so we would want to proceed, but a driving force is to address that classification issue, so we will pursue them for it. We have given them time to respond, so there is potentially the delay, but, of course, we are now in the final run of this Parliament and we want to conclude within this session. I hope that it does not delay. We hope to get that response. That is what we will pursue, but it would still be good to do in any event. Are there any further questions? No amendments have been lodged, but we are obliged to consider each section under the long title and agree formally to each. Standing orders allow us to put a single question where groups of sections are to be considered consecutively, and that is what I propose to do. Firstly, the question is that sections 1 to 4 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Secondly, the question is that the long title be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. That ends stage 2 consideration of the harbours Scotland bill. Stage 3 amendments can be lodged with the clerks and the legislation team a date for stage 3 consideration is still to be agreed by the bureau. I thank the minister and Mr Wilcock for their attendance this morning. I will now suspend briefly to allow for a witness changeover. We resume this meeting of the committee. Agenda item 3 is fourth replacement crossing project team update. The committee will now take oral evidence from the fourth replacement crossing project team. I welcome David Clymie, project director, and Lauren Shackman, project manager for the replacement crossing project team. Before I ask the witnesses to make an opening statement, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and your team for the very hospitable way in which you hosted the recent visit by the committee to the fourth replacement crossing, a visit that I know was appreciated by all members of the committee. I now invite you to make an opening statement. Thank you, convener. I am pleased to be able to report continuing good progress on all aspects of the work for the FRC project since our last appearance before the committee in February of this year. As you have just mentioned two weeks ago, the project team hosted a visit by the convener and some of the committee members to see the work currently going on at the South Tower at Bridgedec level when you experienced some of the better weather conditions that we have prevailed in 2015. The site workforce has steadily increased during the year and currently stands at a new peak of 1,266. Their skill, hard work and dedication has meant that progress on the principal contract for the Queensferry crossing and approach roads continue on time for opening to traffic by the end of 2016. This progress, coupled with the continued low levels of inflation, has meant that we are still working within the overall final project cost range of £1.35 to £1.4 billion, which was announced last October. Focusing on progress on the principal contract and, as previously, we have given you a diagram of the various areas of the project that may help when I am describing those. On the south side of the new B800 bridge on the South Queensferry to Kirkliston road has been completed and open to traffic at the end of July. The A904 B924 junction is now fully signalised and the excavation work for the new M90 road cutting to the north of the South Queensferry junction is now nearly complete. The alignment of the new road to the south and west of South Queensferry is clearly visible, with construction of the lower road layer having just started in August and to be followed by the potumerous layers this autumn. On the Queensferry crossing, steady progress has been made, with the bridge towers having become the tallest in the UK in the summer, the first cables being installed at the north and south towers and construction of the steel viaduct sections and their supporting piers nearing completion. The tower crane for the north tower has now reached its final height of 235 metres and the cranes at the centre and south towers will be jacked up to the same height shortly. The north tower has reached concrete pour 51 out of 54, with the south and centre towers currently at concrete pours 48 and 46 respectively. The first stay cables have been installed at both the north and south towers and the four deck units that were previously supported on the large temporary trestles have been lifted clear of them by transferring the load into these cables. That means that the four cables are carrying a load of about 4,000 tonnes in total at each tower. A major milestone was achieved last week when the first two deck units complete with a concrete deck and fitted out with internal access walkways and mechanical and electrical installations were loaded onto a barge at the quayside in Rossife and lifted into place either side of the north tower on September 7 and 9. Each of those deck units weighs about 800 tonnes. The contractor is now welding those deck units in position and will then install the next pair of cables to transfer the load from the blue deck lifting gantries. Work in the Rossife mariniard to prepare the deck units is progressing well, with deck concrete and internal fit out complete or in progress on 26 deck units. On the viaduct, the push launch for the steel work on the south side was completed with the final launching operations over pier S3 in June. The twin boxes are each 543 metres long and work has now started to install the concrete deck starting at the south abatement and working north. On the north side, all the steel work has been delivered, welded and painted and the focus has now shifted to preparations for the launch of the 222 metre long north viaduct structure weighing nearly 6,000 tonnes. The gantry crane and tent structure, which will provide a good weather protection to the welding and painting works, will be removed shortly. This will allow installation of the king post, which is a modified version of those used for the south approach viaduct launches to take place. On the north side road works, the ferritol viaduct is nearing structural completion, with 18 steel girders having lifted into place in January to March of this year and seven of the nine-deck concrete pours being completed. Work on the bridges to carry the northbound M90 across the new ferritol junction has been completed and the final road surfacing is in progress to allow traffic to be switched onto the new alignment shortly. Significant work has also progressed on Hope Street and in Vakirin and the B981 King Malcolm Drive ferritol road junction is now fully signalised. The physical progress across the project, of course, is attracting ever-increasing interest and we continue to engage with the public, schools and stakeholders on an on-going basis, making use of the wide range of communication techniques with the contacts and education centre being the focus of these activities. This has resulted in very positive media coverage and community relations have continued to be very good with much positive feedback from the many presentations and site visits that we have hosted. We also continue to monitor the performance of the two road contracts completed earlier on the project and the performance of those remains positive. Overall, 2015 to date has presented some challenging weather conditions with a lack of a normal summer and repeated periods of what has been reported as unseasonably windy weather. But through careful planning and determined efforts of the very skilled workforce on site, we have been able to minimise the effects of this and keep the project on track both on time and on budget. You have already confirmed that the project is currently on time and within the predicted budget range. Is there anything further that you want to say about the timescales and budget at this stage? No, I think that I have covered that in terms of, obviously, we continue to monitor the budget very carefully. It is trending towards the low end of the range, which is extremely encouraging, but I do not have any further to add on this at this point. Okay, that is fine. You also mentioned the challenging weather conditions that there have been, but obviously your team is very resilient in overcoming them and that is very welcome. Raising the bridge deck sections can only be done in relatively calm weather conditions. Are you confident that there is sufficient contingency time in the project programme to allow the bridge to open on time, even if there is a very windy autumn and winter this year? Clearly, this is an area that we have looked at extremely closely. The allowances that we have in the programme have remained unaltered for this particular operation. Within the programme, we always had allowed about a year for the deck lifting operation, and that still remains the same. We still allowed a year for those operations to take place. Providing we get it done within that year, there is adequate time to complete things like the waterproofing, the concreting, the completion of the road surfacing and so on, to allow the project to be opened to traffic by the end of 2016, as we have planned. There are good allowances built in, as I said. We have looked very closely at previous weather records because it is wind that is the key factor in terms of the deck lifting operations. That is the key factor. It is about a 30-mile-an-hour wind. That is the governing factor for me to lift off the barge and also for being able to lift the deck up into position. It is important that we know just what the likelihood is of winds above 30 miles-an-hour. Historically, we look at a range on average. July and August, for example, would expect about 5 per cent of the time we would have winds above that threshold. Going into the winter, it is more like 25 to 30 per cent on average. Looking at the worst month that we have had in the last 20 years or so, which was the month of February, that had about 55 per cent occurrence of winds above that threshold. What is particularly important is that we are geared up so that when we get periods of calm weather, which will come along between the windy spells, we have to be ready to lift as many deck units as possible in those windows when they become available. I am confident that providing we get, I suppose, what we call average weather that was still on track for the end of 2016, we are ready to get, as you describe, a horribly windy autumn and winter that would create some challenges, obviously. However, I am confident that the project team is ready to address those challenges. A lot of hard work goes into the planning of all the operations that lead up to the opening to traffic and will continue to mourn us of those who work very hard at it. Is there a scenario in your scenario where you have to go beyond opening the bridge to traffic by the end of 2016? Of course, we do plan for that, yes. I think that it would be rash not to. It could be a possibility, but at the moment we are certainly not predicting that, and I am still confident to be able to say to you today that we are still on track for the end of 2016, but I think that it would be misguided not to at least have looked at it at a potential risk. We have always looked very closely at all the risks associated with the project throughout the duration of it, and we continue to do that. You very helpfully set out in your opening statement a number of the key project milestones that have already been achieved, the installation of the cables, the deck units being lifted into place and the work that is being done in launching one of the Viaducts, if I heard you correctly. Are there any other milestones that we can look forward to in the next six months? Certainly, yes. There is going to be a lot of activity going on. I think that I focus on what has happened in my opening statement, but coming up in the next period, we are going to be demolishing the existing B800 bridge now that the new one is open, and that is currently scheduled for late October, early November, over up to three weekends. Final dates will be confirmed and will be well publicised by the end of this month, as we expect a significant traffic impact during that operation, because we are going to have to close the A90 south of the Forth road bridge between about eight o'clock on Saturday evening and six o'clock on Monday morning to demolish the two existing spans. We are taking the opportunity of doing that to work with FBOC, the Forth bridges operating company, to carry out other works on the Forth road bridge and the road network locally, so that we maximise the opportunity of working on both the bridge itself and the adjacent roads during that closure. South mainline road surfacing will be completed from Scotstown all the way to the south abutment over the next four months. The deck concrete will be installed on the south approach of Viaduct, and the remaining piers S1 and S2 on the south side will be completed by next spring. The three towers will be completed to their full height in the next one to three months. The north tower looks like it has won the race to the top. It is only three piers away, so it should be there within the next month. South and centre will be within the next three months. Blifting of the deck sections, as I said, will continue into next summer, with work at the south tower commencing later this month. First deck units will go up at the south tower by the end of September, and at the centre tower will be starting next month. All three towers will be under way by the end of next month. The north approach of Viaduct will be launched to the out-and-sposition over piers S2 and S1 in the late autumn, and that will take about a week to launch. The first connection of the cable-supported deck units building out from the towers to the land will happen on the north side of the north tower in the spring of 2016. At that point, we will have the first time to walk on access from the land to one of the towers on the north side. On the road network to the north of the bridge, the ferry toll viaduct will be completed this winter, and traffic will be switched on to the new northbound M90 alignment between ferry toll and admiralty progressively from next month to allow the new southbound road and bridges to be constructed. Those are the highlights of what is coming up, but there is going to be a huge amount of activity all the way across the project. Okay, thank you for sharing those highlights with us this morning. Mr Shackman, is there anything that you want to add at this stage? No, thank you, not this time. Okay, fine. We're going to move on. Mike, you have some questions. Yes, thank you, convener. I'd just like to add my thanks to yours for the visit that really brought home to me the challenges and the complexities of the work. I see that as somebody who worked for many years in the construction industry, including working on the A9 and the Keswick bridge in 1976. I really do have an appreciation of the scale of the challenge and how well you've risen to the various challenges. I suppose the thing that struck me was, first of all, how constrained the site is in terms of the logistics of getting materials in and that flow of materials and so on. I really have to take my heart off to you and everybody involved in the project that it's looking so good so far. The one thing that I would like to ask about is that there were some media reports in mid June talking about some problems with a concrete porno in the North Tower, suggesting that that had to be aborted and the concrete from that batch removed. Could you explain to the committee a bit about that, please? Certainly, yes. Just to put it into context, this was one porno that we had a problem with out of many hundreds that have been carried out on the project. This particular porno was the first porno of deck concrete being placed on one of the deck units of the towers, so it was the first time that that particular operation had been carried out. As we have seen it, it was a normal porno. It was in the normal range of operations. There were one or two things that happened on that particular day that combined to create a problem. One was that there was a cruise liner in it that resized that day, so we weren't able to load the concrete barge as quickly as we would have liked. There was also a delay in getting the concrete barge itself out to the tower. Now, as you know, as concrete ages it starts to stiffen. It's already a particularly stiff mix that we're using to create the high strength that we need on the project. Therefore, that hold-up in getting the barge out to the tower initially meant that the concrete had already started to stiffen. It has to be pumped from the base of the tower up 60 metres and then out to the deck itself. The particular incident that happened on this case was one of the concrete pipes that was used to pump the concrete. It split. It burst, because it's under pressure, obviously. Again, the concrete mix that we're using is quite an abrasive mix. When it's pumped through the steel pipes, it does actually wear the inside of the pipes, so it was just really that the pipe itself had worn out and broke. What I would do is I would applaud the contractor in that they made what was quite a hard decision to abort a pour, because when you've got all those logistics in place, you don't want to have to stop a pour, but they looked at it, decided that this wasn't going to work, they were having great difficulty spreading the concrete and placing it, and therefore they decided after placing about 20 cubic metres that they would stop the pour, take out the concrete that had been placed, and again, the quicker you make that decision, the easier it is to get that concrete out and then reconvene and then carry out the pour. Thank you. That seems a perfectly reasonable explanation to me. Our friends in the present media suggested that it was sheer luck that no one was badly injured or killed, and they're never ever given to hyperbole these folk. Do you share that assessment of the situation? Was there a health and safety risk? No, absolutely not. Health and safety clearly is our number one priority on the job. On every single operation that we do, a huge amount of planning goes into it. We produce method statements, we produce risk assessments. It's difficult work out there. We've got to make sure that every single part of that operation is planned and prepared and briefed out to the workforce. Health and safety is our number one priority, and it remains that throughout the job, and we'll always do. As I said, this was one problem that occurred in a pour out of several hundred. It was dealt with quickly and effectively, and there was no risk to personnel on the site. Well, certainly during the visit, it was very apparent to me that it's an extremely well-organised job with huge regard for health and safety, so I was surprised to read that story. Mook, if you've finished on that specific question. Thank you, Mr Climb. It's just for absolute clarity. Some of the report said that the pipes exploded. You described it as a split in the pipe. Could you just take this opportunity to put on record your understanding of the reality? I think that it's a matter of degree. The concrete is awfully pumped under pressure. If the pipe splits, then concrete comes out because it is being pumped under pressure, but it's not being pumped under huge pressure and an explosion, as you described it. I mean, an explosion suggests something really quite catastrophic. This was not a good thing to happen, but it was certainly nothing that could be described as a catastrophe. It was a pipe under pressure that split and concrete came out of it. Thank you. That just tells us that there has been an investigation into what was clearly a very important health and safety incident. Yes, there was. In any incident like this that carries out, we would describe it as a near miss, in that an event did happen. Potentially it might have caused some damage if someone had been close to it. We always carried out a thorough investigation of these near misses. They were reviewed by the senior management team on the project, because it's important that we also cascade that information out to the whole workforce and produce a lessons learned. A near miss took place, what lessons have we learned from it? One of the lessons that we learned was that we had to look and potentially place the pipes that we used for this pumping system on a more regular basis. There was a clear lesson that came out of it, and that was distributed out to the workforce. Can I just press you on this? Is there any truth in the suggestion that some of the employees had said that the work should stop and that this had been disregarded by their manager? I don't believe that there's any truth in that at all. I've certainly been reassured by FCBC that the contract of that was not the case. I'm just moving on. Amy is now assumed responsibility for the management and maintenance of the current fourth road bridge, and there will be assuming responsibility for the Coonsbury crossing when it opens. Are you engaging with Amy to discuss the assumption of that responsibility? If so, how are you engaging with them? Yes, we've had an on-going dialogue with my colleagues in Transport Scotland, who did the tender process for the fourth bridges operating company and seamlessly the transfer through to Amy. They've had regular visits to the site, both not just for the Coonsbury crossing element, which is obviously very much under construction at the moment, but also the road network connections, which have their own idiosyncrasies as well. The plan has always been that we would have them along for site visits and meetings and make sure that they knew as much as they possibly can know about the road network and the bridge itself before they actually take control of that, if you like, hopefully towards the end of next year. As you can imagine, there are a number of not only the structural side of the bridge, but also a lot of mechanical, electrical installations within the bridge and its surrounding areas, so it's very important to make sure that they're brought on board, and that's been very much the case through the period that Amy were appointed, and it'll be right up to when they take operation of the bridge itself at the end of next year. One of the implications on our contractor is to make sure that they have proper training in all the equipment that is installed in the bridge, so the lift maintenance, for example, there are lifts in each of the towers of the bridge, there are shuttles within the deck itself to get men and equipment to various locations within the bridge, so all of these things that our contractor has a requirement in the contract, in our construction contract, to educate the operating company so that they're up to speed from day one. The one thing that I recollect from our briefing was that this bridge has been designed in such a way as to facilitate maintenance of the cables, which carry the load unlike the other bridge. Can you explain just a wee bit about how that works? Yes, I think the fundamental difference between the cables that we use on the cable staid bridge and the suspension bridge is that the existing cables on the fourth road bridge were installed in situ. Literally individual galvanised wires were put into place, exposed to the weather over a continued period of time, and therefore when the cable was compacted and finished, water was obviously trapped in the cable. In the cables that we use for the cable staid bridge, the individual strands that make up the cable are manufactured in a factory, so they manufacture them in factory conditions. They use the same basic 5mm galvanised wire, so that the fundamental material is exactly the same, but that galvanised wire is in a factory, coated in wax. There's seven of those wires that then spun together into a strand, which is then coated with an HDPE sheathing. That is what's delivered to site, so the wires are already protected and sheathed when they come to the site. Up to 109 of those individual strands are put into each of the staid cables, with the number depending on the angle of the cable. That is then enclosed with a further large white HDPE sheath to protect them again. So there's a multiple layer system that's put in place, and the initial protection of the wires is done in factory conditions, not out in the open air, so you keep water out at the start. Also on the cable staid bridge, it has the advantage that any individual cable staid can be taken out and replaced, either by an individual strand, or all the strands in one particular cable, can be taken out and replaced with the bridge fully open to traffic. So it's far easier, it's less prone to corrosion in the wire, and it's far easier to replace if it has to be replaced. Those are the fundamental differences between the two bridges. There's also a dehumidification system that's going to be installed in the bridge to make sure that, where the cables are anchored, both in the deck and at the top of the towers, the conditions are kept as dry as possible to prevent corrosion. Okay, thank you very much. That's very useful to know. Thank you. Adam, you have some questions. Yeah, thank you, convener. Mr Climey, you mentioned in your opening remarks that there are good community relations between the project and the various local communities. However, we have received some correspondence from BRIGS, the bridge replacement interest group south, raising some issues of concern. For example, the state that properties near the echeline corner have been damaged by construction works with cracks visible in some properties. Are you aware of those concerns and what you're doing to remedy any damage to properties caused by construction work? Yeah, certainly we are aware of those concerns. They have been raised with us, some of them quite a considerable time ago in fact. But as part of the overall engagement on the project, one of the things we were required to do was to identify potentially susceptible properties close to the works and to carry out structural surveys of those prior to work starting. In between August and December 2011, we carried out property condition surveys using an independent consulting structural engineer on quite a large number of properties around the project so that we had a baseline at the start. It doesn't help if you just come in partly through the project and you have to know where you're starting from. We did those baseline surveys in 2011. When we had this report from this particular householder, we arranged a follow-up survey, which took place in February 2014, and a further report was issued following that visit. It did identify that there were some small hairline cracks that had appeared, but the structural survey identified that they categorised these type of defects in a range of one to five. Those were all categorised as category one, which is determined as very slight and 0.1 to one millimetre, so it's a hairline crack. We've said that we'll continually monitor that property. We also have a requirement at the end of the work to re-survey all the properties that we originally surveyed. Again, we've got an end condition as well. Even if no one complained to us, we'd still go back and do a final survey to make sure that there was no issue. Clearly, if there is any damage that has been caused and can be attributed to construction, then the project will have to deal with that quite clearly. So compensation would be offered to people who are in that circumstance? It could either be a repair that could be carried out or, potentially, it could be compensation. But you're not seeing any evidence of significant problems in that area. We haven't seen any issues, so do you want to understand? No, what David just said is where we are at the moment, these hairline cracks. We will do those surveys in 2016 and take appropriate action at the time. Briggs has also highlighted a number of concerns about inadequate, ineffective or missing traffic management measures. I take it that you've investigated those concerns and taken action where appropriate. Some of those include construction vehicles, wheel washing, not being sufficiently effective, resulting in mud and roads and footpaths. There's also construction traffic using accessing hope and road society, road and bus and breach of undertakings, those kinds of issues. Well, in relation to the first issue, the wheel washing, I'm sure you're aware, there's a code of construction practice which was debated during the fourth crossing bill, which sets out all the obligations on the contractor in terms of wheel washing facilities, noise limits and various other fundamental aspects of trying to construct the project in an appropriate manner and mitigate the impacts as much as possible or eliminate the impacts as much as possible. When it comes to wheel washing, there are clauses in there which clearly say that the contractor is obligated to keep the roads free from dirt and mud and I think the majority of the project has been kept very clean of dirt and mud. I'm not saying that there hasn't been instances in some places where problems have arisen and there are dedicated wheel wash facilities provided where it's reasonably practical and that's the phrase that's included in the code of construction practice. It's not always practical to put in dedicated wheel wash facilities where you need to have a dedicated water supply and electrical equipment potentially for shaking the mud off vehicles. So in very small difficult areas to access if you like it, it's not reasonably practical to put those facilities in place. There's certainly a dedicated wheel wash facility in the area around Echelon Corner which leads into and out of the main satellite compound. So that wherever reasonably practical facilities have been put in place and the contractor has undertaken a cleaning regime with some of his suppliers to make sure that the roads in the area are regularly cleaned and the footpaths and bus stops as well have been cleaned on an ongoing basis. I think I'm pleased to say that certainly during this year there's been a marked improvement on some of the the cleanliness of the roads particularly in the Echelon Corner area than there was in previous years, certainly import of the spent oil, shale material from the Winchborough Bings. That was causing some issues or some concerns in the past. It's very evident with the red material on the road and the efforts have been made to keep the roads clean. That seems to be really very much resolved now as we've come through 2015. With regard to traffic accessing society road, there is an issue here with construction traffic, traffic actually doing the work and people actually arriving to work on the project and there's no restriction in the code of construction practice on workers actually getting to and from their place of work, albeit that we would want to keep that to an absolute minimum. There's an area around society road underneath the south approach viaduct on your plans really near Linn Mill where there are some subcontractors of the main contractor working on the approach viaduct and they were certainly working on the foundations of the piers immediately adjacent to society road and some of their personnel accessed the work site at that location. They had an office and facilities there but we were keen to keep those workers or the parking vehicles which is the real issue to a minimum and we worked with the contractor to make sure that as many steps were taken as possible to limit the amount of people working in that area or bringing vehicles into that area that's people getting to and from their place of work. With regard to actually construction vehicles you're absolutely right I need to make sure that that road is kept free of those and as part of the employer's delivery team transport Scotland being part of that we've been monitoring on a regular basis the contractor's vehicles going to and from along that road and we've been able to work with the contractor to make sure it's kept to an absolute minimum. The main reason for any breaches of that code are really from new subcontractors not understanding that they're not allowed to go along that road and that's really something that the contractor FCBC have had to bring into their briefings when new subcontractors are involved in the project so that they know from day one they mustn't use that road and we we do occasionally really bang the drum to the contractor to make sure that he's vigilant and minimises the amount of traffic. That's a rather long answer but we have discussed that a lot at community forums and there was a step change after an initial use of that road probably a year ago or so and it was noted by the users the residents of Linmill that there had been a step change in reduction in the amount of abuse of that road. I was just reading through the submission that came from the residents and I mean there's a lot of things there that have been explained in terms of normal construction disturbance and it happens and you have to deal with it but a very serious concern of people is their properties and that's only natural. Mr Climy, when you were talking about one property but the submission that has come in refers to properties in the plural and I just wondered what your understanding of that properties that have developed hairline cracks and what kind of on-going dialogue there has been with owners residents who will obviously be very concerned. I've mentioned one property and that's because one property has specifically been escalated to us and therefore we followed up on it. I think we've had several inquiries on the subject and people have gone out to look at what people think may be something to do with the construction and the initial review has been that really no, they aren't. I mean they're a considerable distance away from any work that's been carried out or we've actually put vibrographs to check the vibration in certain areas when we've been requested to do so just to reassure people that because people feel vibration long before it actually causes any damage so we've actually put vibrographs out in people's gardens or close to their house just to show them that we are working within the limits imposed by the code of construction practice and are using best practical means because it's something that the noise liaison group which was established as part of the project is called the noise liaison group but it does also deal with vibration as well. We review all of the reports that come in on a monthly basis. We publish all those on our website as well so there's quite a detailed process that we go through in terms of monitoring vibration, looking at what vibration the works we're going to be doing are going to cause. One particular area we're looking at coming up for example is the demolition of the B800 bridge. That is going to be quite disruptive clearly but that's something we are looking at. We're going to talk to the residents about in advance of the work going on just to make sure that we do try to let them know what's coming and we'll continue to monitor those areas. One of the things that's been said in the submission is that people find those that they're dealing with a bit dismissive and defensive. I just wonder if you have particular people that deal with residents so that people do feel there's transparency and inclusiveness in what's going on. Certainly I think the general feedback that I get is that we're extremely responsive and open in all of our dealings. That's part of the reason for having the contact and education centre as a point where people can contact us directly. That's why our client team is based on the site. We're not remote in a long distance away. We're actually here. We're here to be seen. We have the community forums where issues can be brought to our attention. We have regular project briefings. We had members of the community forum visited the site. We gave them a tour around the site. 10 days ago, we brought them to the site. I think we're probably one of the most open projects currently going on in terms of our engagement with the community and the way we deal with the community. Certainly, if anyone does have any concern about how they've been dealt with by anybody on the project, I would encourage them to contact me and let me know. Okay, thank you very much. If you excuse me smiling, I just thought you were a wee bit defensive there. Can I just add one other thing? Dedicated community liaison officers or a community liaison officer and his team. That was part of the contract requirements and also part of the code of construction practice. That person is one of the contractor's staff members and they're available at all times to be contacted by phone or by dropping in at the contact and education centre or email. We're very keen and we've done our best to try and make sure that the community as such don't leave issues until they get to the community forums, which occasionally does happen, to bring the issues to us straight away so that we can deal with them as appropriately and as quickly as possible. To say that we're defensive is rather surprising. I've, like David, worked on many projects in the past and I don't think there's ever been a project where we've been so open and transparent about trying to make sure that if there is an issue we will deal with it. Sometimes people don't like the answer that you give them, unfortunately, but wherever possible we do try to work with the community to get to where we're going as quickly and as efficiently and without as little disruption as possible. In fact, Linda was saying that you're a wee bit defensive. I'm surprised that you haven't developed a nervous twitch by this stage. There are a couple of other issues on the same topic. Briggs has raised concerns about noise and poor landscaping works at Echlin Corner. Do you intend to take any action to minimise noise there and to consider changing the landscape in issues? In terms of noise, as I mentioned earlier, we have our noise liaison group. All the work that we do is looked at by the noise liaison group to make sure that we are using best practical means and the contractor is using best practical means to carry out the work there. In terms of the, we do occasionally get a complaint about noise and the most recent ones that we've had have actually been related to properties very close to the water, both in the north side and the south side. Certainly recently, I don't believe that we've had any noise complaints from the Echlin Corner area. That may be due to the fact that the work is beginning to decrease in that area. It's obviously nearing completion. However, we have noise monitors at Echlin Corner that would publish the results of those noise monitors. Again, it's very transparent in terms of what the levels of noise have actually been and if there have been any exceedances. I think that the Echlin Corner monitor is one that's had the fewest exceedances of any of the monitors that we have on the job. Certainly, we're aware of the issue and we make sure that we deal with it. If any noise complaints are raised, they are assessed at the noise liaison group and every individual complaint is discussed at the noise liaison group. We publish our minutes in terms of what's been discussed in terms of that and what action, if any, we've taken to mitigate any complaints that have arisen. Are you giving any consideration to additional landscaping work at Echlin Corner? Discuss with some of the members of Briggs in a series of meetings about how the landscaping could be improved and supplemented. In terms of the bonding that was always envisaged between the new approach road and Echlin Corner, the bond has actually been increased in height and we've also increased the amount of mature tree planting which has been incorporated into the works and we worked with Briggs people in particular, promised them that the bonding and the planting would be delivered by spring of this year and that's what actually happened so that there is an increased height of bond and planting in that area. The vast majority of the works in the Echlin Corner area have been completed, they have not been formally handed over to Transport Scotland as completed works but they're substantially complete in many respects. Landscaping, there are areas of grassing in that area, I mean I drove through there this morning and I can see one of the areas to the south of the A904 which has been, the earthworks have been prepared to a fine tilth and they're just getting ready to be seeded for the grass growing season. Any weeds that appear in the grass, I mean sometimes that this unfortunately does occur, they will be treated in due course. To the end of the contract, well five years after the completion of the contract, our contractor is responsible for all landscaping maintenance so it's in his interest to make sure that he gets it right when he plants it in the first instance because he's going to have to come back and sort these issues out during the five years. Briggs have also raised concerns about the new road layouts and the fact that they're still subject to peat-time congestion. Is this the case and do you expect this to subside following the opening of the bridge itself? I think this principally relates to the main A90. Now there clearly, the work hasn't finished yet and the whole idea is it's a 22 kilometre corridor. What we did do is we split it into three parts, we did the 5-5-TS and the M9 junction 1A early and that was done deliberately so that we could use those ITS systems to reduce the additional impact of the roadworks that we were going to do at either end of the Queensferry crossing to connect it into the main line and certainly the monitoring information that we're getting so far on the operation of 5-5-TS and M9 junction 1A suggests that those are working as we planned but I think it's unrealistic to expect there to be a difference in traffic going across the fourth road bridge at present because we haven't done anything there yet. Really the transformation comes when we switch all traffic apart from public transport onto the new Queensferry crossing because at that point we have the new road system, we have the new ITS system, we also at that point have the hard shoulders which allow if there's a breakdown or an accident traffic to be moved out of the way because certainly from personal experience I've noticed that there's still immense tailbacks developed if there is a breakdown or a shunt on the bridge and that's something that we're doing at the moment it doesn't alter that so therefore it's too early to try to draw conclusions and say well it's not working as you said it would because it's not finished yet and the fundamental step change comes when we open the Queensferry crossing. I don't know if you've presumed we've seen the bridge submission that we received, is there anything else in there that you want to address at this stage? Well just looking at the road layout at Eklang Corner, the traffic lights which are now operational I think there's not all of the lanes through the junction are actually in an operation at the moment because of the close proximity to the Queensferry junction which is only partially constructed obviously the slip roads have got to be put into operation and constructed which will happen over the coming months so in terms of the operation of the junction there's been some issues which we've looked at to make sure that it's operating as efficiently as it can in its present temporary form. One of the issues that Briggs raised was they wanted that particular junction signalised from day one it was fully safety audited which involves an independent road safety auditor, the police, local authority and various other officials and they deemed it to be a safe arrangement but Briggs were adamant that they want the traffic lights operational at an early stage although the contractor was under no obligation to do that but we listened to their concerns and we were able to realise those traffic lights back in June this year so that I think was a positive of working with Briggs on that particular issue. I think overall we welcome the Briggs written submission I think it's helpful it summarises I think most of their issues that have arisen over to period 2011 to 2015 and obviously we're fully aware of all the examples that were covered within their submittal there were no new issues there that came up and surprised us so it's helpful and I also appreciated the fact that they did also state in their submission that a lot of the issues have been resolved perhaps not as quickly as they might have liked but they have been resolved which is helpful so I think from that point of view we're happy that any issues that were there we already know about many of them have been already dealt with through correspondence directly with Briggs representatives Briggs are represented on the south community forum they attend that and certainly at the last meeting that took place at the end of august I think there were no new issues raised there that have not been dealt with and we'll continue to engage with them going forward on the project. I mean if you're in the community forum minutes which are all published on the website you'll see all I think pretty well all of these issues discussed and documented all the way through the last four years and some of the minutes are really quite lengthy. You might not be surprised to discover that in recent weeks the number one issue that's been coming across my desk has been the issue of community engagement in relation to the construction phase of Aberdeen Western peripheral route and there seems to be quite a lot of people getting in touch with me about various things there. However I've watched your community engagement strategy develop during the project and I've seen what I believe to be a very successful outturn. Is the project team aware of whether Transport Scotland is capturing what it has learned so that examples of best practice can be used on other projects like the AWPR and the A9 which is now into its construction phase? Yes, since the start of the project at various stages through the development of the process of developing the project and then the bill process, the procurement process and then into construction at various junctures we've undertaken a lessons learnt exercise and we've now got a huge lessons learnt log which is actually currently being updated again to capture lessons over the last couple of years and we've shared those lessons with a number of different bodies both within Transport Scotland, different teams within Transport Scotland. We did have a meeting a while back now with the Aberdeen Western peripheral route team, we've certainly spoken to the A9 team in terms of developing their community relationships and making sure that they get off to the best possible footing in terms of how the scheme is going to look and how to manage the scheme as it's being delivered. We've also engaged with a lot of external parties, we get asked to talk regularly at different conferences, I only last week was talking at the Association of Project Managers Scottish Conference at Murrayfield imparting some of the lessons that I've learnt in terms of the governance of the project and programming, risk management that kind of thing. We've also engaged with other large organisations like Highways Agency now called Highways England, they came to see us only a few weeks back, they're developing a project, The Lower Thames Crossing to replace or augment the Dartford Crossing which is a multi-billion pound project potentially so that we had a whole lessons learnt with them, High Speed Rail team, we've had regular meetings with the Mersey Gateway crossing as well, their team over the last seven or eight years actually, so we've learnt lessons from them and they've learnt lessons from us, so we're more than happy to talk to anyone who wants to listen to us really in taking the lessons forward. I may refer some reading you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Linda, you have some further questions. Yes, the public transport strategy, I know that that's been an ongoing issue and some people are concerned about it but there are two particular things that were pointed out to me in relation to the new bridge area. I understand that there's a study due to come out in summer 2015 was what was said, I was wondering how that was going and also there's a concern about potentially a bus-only slip road between the B800 and the A90 because having that would very much reduce journey times obviously but we've heard that it's not attractive to bus operators, I wondered why, if you were aware as to why and I think there's concern that that would mean that that now just doesn't get pursued, I wonder if you could put people's minds at rest in any way. Yes, sure, I actually attend the public transport working group meetings and I was at the last meeting back in March, I think the next meeting is due the end of October or early November. With regard to new bridge that seems to be has developed as being one of the key issues along the fourth crossing corridor and it's really a stop in the public transport network as well as it is a difficulty for motorists and you hear it on the news pretty well every morning. The study that's being undertaken principally a jointly funded study between Transport Scotland, City of Edinburgh Council and West Lothian but it's been managed by City of Edinburgh Council. They have consultants on board and the study involves traffic modelling and various other issues which I won't go into the detail of but the modelling is still being undertaken at the moment as I understand it and the final report is due this autumn rather than the summer so there has been some slippage in that report and that will be one of the key points that will be discussed at the next meeting I guess. The B800 slip roads to what we used to refer to as the M9 spur, it's now the M90 just north of the junction 1A junction on the M9. We looked at this in a lot of detail and really there's only limited demand from public transport operators because only the Stagecoach 747 service which is the one that would directly benefit from that proposal I think that's the one that goes from Ferrytoll Park and Ride down towards the airport so they would have a journey time saving as you alluded to before but other services such as Stagecoach 51 and Lothian 63 would experience or likely experience reduced patronage because they wouldn't actually go through Kirkliston anymore because they would bypass Kirkliston so there's pluses and minuses in all these things and for the amount of money that it would cost to build those slip roads there are also considerations in terms of how the slip roads interact with the main traffic flow on that and that section of motorway it really doesn't look like a good proposal and certainly doesn't offer good value for money or any real benefit in terms of journey time so it doesn't look like it's a suitable proposal to take forward it'd be better to spend the money on something else that was more beneficial. Thank you very much for that. Just being substituting today from a colleague James Dorn and I guess it's over to you and that one, convener. I won't be here to hear the result of that study. Okay, we'll make sure, Linda, that you have fully abreast of developments as they take place. Thank you. I have a question in relation to cycle access. Cyclists have raised concerns that an adequate provision is being made available for them on the sections of the B800 which is currently being upgraded as part of the project and also that they are being excluded from the northbound bus lane. Are those concerns that you have on your radar and also what action if any are you intending to take to improve cycle access and provision for cyclists on the B800? I believe that there were some concerns by a number of cyclists and some blog raised further concerns and there was some misinformation about what cyclists couldn't do on the B800 as it was reconstructed or reconfigured as part of our works but what I wanted to make sure was clear was that the bus lane facilities on the B800 will be able to be used by cyclists as they can use any bus lane in Edinburgh and we do have dedicated bus lanes or bus facilities right throughout the project and wherever possible we've integrated those in with the existing facilities to make sure that we've got good connectivity to existing bus facilities particularly around the ferry toll sorry cycle facilities sorry cycle facilities around the ferry toll junction for example there's a whole system of cycle lanes there the B800 will have cycle lanes up to the ferry mure roundabout and provides connectivity into existing national cycleways but the actual dedicated bus lanes the northbound offslip off of the the A90 that wouldn't be for cyclists to use because cyclists can't actually use the A90 okay can I encourage you to to continue your dialogue with cyclists because I think that there is still a not notwithstanding the fact that there's been some misinformation I think their perception is that they're being excluded from the northbound bus lane we you're saying that for practical reasons that can be addressed no not the actual it's hard to explain it but the actual dedicated slip road that comes which will be constructed from the Scotston junction up to the B800 which is a bus only slip road or bus and taxi slip road that's obviously come off the A90 so cyclists won't be on the A90 there anyway but once on the B800 itself we've provided as part of the new bridge which David explained earlier and the connections either side there are new cycle lanes provided on that bridge and then in turn the bus lanes that's segregated dedicated yes it is and then sorry can I encourage you to communicate that piece of good news yes well we have we have communicated that to all the people concerned because we were we were keen to put that story right so we did communicate that out to to all the relevant people and they were content at what we told me that's fine we'll give you a further platform to communicate that message this morning and can I now ask Siobhan it was mentioned in the open statement that there's 1,266 employees currently working on the bridge but in transport Scotland's most recent update it doesn't include any information on the number of apprentices or professional trainees currently working on the project so I was just wondering what the numbers are in the terms of the 1,266? Certainly yeah I'm happy to clarify that that area as of the 31st of july of this year so far on the project to date we've delivered 638 places for vocational and professional body training and the long-term unemployed and I'll break that down in a bit more detail for you because that's just a grand total on the project to date so in terms of vocational training which is svq level 2 or higher we currently have 137 people who are undertaking vocational training and on the project to date 421 people have either undertaken or completed vocational training so that equates to a cumulative annual average which is what we check against of just over 100 people and that's against a minimum contractual requirement of 45 so well above that that minimum contractual requirement and those numbers include 12 on-going modern apprentices all of whom are from the Fife, Lothian or Edinburgh area in terms of professional training which is to do with trainings professional engineers we currently have 19 people undertaking professional training and on the project to date 71 have either undertaken or completed professional training and that gives us a cumulative annual average of 36.3 in professional training compared to the minimum contractual requirement of 21 I'll cover the long-term unemployed as well if I may perhaps there are currently 69 people in employment who'd previously been unemployed for at least 25 weeks and to date on the project 146 people have been employed so that gives us a cumulative annual average of just over 50 compared to the minimum contractual requirement of 46 so I think that the training has proved to be extremely successful the contractor has been delivering well over and above what we put in the original contract even though they actually offered us more than the minimum requirements we put out at tender stage so we said a bar with annual averages then their bid put a higher bar in place for a higher annual average and they're beating even that higher bar so I think that to be congratulated on that absolutely it's fantastic news but is there something that they're doing that others can learn from because clearly the contract minimum we've all seen it in projects so I've met in maybe one or two above but I mean this is clearly great news that it's exceeding and doubling in some cases so is there something specifically that they're doing do you know or it's just worked out that way? I think we have the advantage it's a hugely attractive project to work on I think so many people want to come and be involved in the force of casement crossing project so there's been no shortage of people wanting to want to come and work on the project but I think FCBC have developed a very good training programme they've really committed to it up front to make sure that once they have people on board they're trying to retain them because I mentioned apprentices earlier and there's three who have completed their apprenticeships and they've now been taken on in full-time roles within FCBC so again I think that's encouraging that it's not just delivering to meet a statistic that's actually following through on that in terms of long-term training that's very good news just on a separate issue then I understand obviously I wasn't on the committee at the time but in March 2013 an assurance when we was given a bit of watching brief on the use of blacklisting within the contract is can you give an update on that? I can in fact there was a question I was asked when I was last at the committee back in in February I was asked that same question and anticipating that I might be asked the same question today I did speak to Michael Martin the FCBC project director yesterday to ask him that specific question and he has again categorically reassured me that FCBC never has and never will engage in any blacklisting on the project. I appreciate the answer, thank you. Thank you. Do members have any further questions? Nope. I'm just trying to work out what FCBC stands for because there's one of the bits I can't get. Both crossing bridge constructors. Constructor. Thank you very much. On behalf of the committee I thank you for the very open and constructive way in which you've engaged with our committee not just in terms of the six monthly updates that you provide but the three monthly written updates that you have fed into the committee. You can also acknowledge and recognise the high level of community engagement that is clearly taking place notwithstanding that things will never be 100 per cent perfection in the eyes of local residents and also recognise the strenuous efforts that you're making to share good practice and the lessons of this project with other transport projects across the UK. Are there any further points that you would wish to make to the committee this morning? I don't think so and I think that we've covered everything very thoroughly. Thank you. It only remains to me to thank you for your very detailed and overall evidence this morning and for your attendance this morning. That concludes today's committee business. I now close this meeting of the committee. Thank you very much.