Green light for £13.3m Cullivoe road – but questions about ‘frustrating’ procurement delays to be kept private

Work is finally set to begin on the long-awaited Cullivoe road after councillors gave the £13.3m project the green light.

Members welcomed the progress at a meeting on Tuesday but also raised concerns about the frustrating delays and spiralling costs.

Initially estimated to cost just over £5m, the latest budget includes £8.9m in civil works and £2.4m of surfacing work to be undertaken in house by the council’s roads team.

Councillors questioned how the costs had risen so much and why a recent procurement exercise had to be retendered after “anomalies” were identified.

Assets manager Robert Sinclair was reluctant to comment on such issues in public but said he would go into more detail in a private session.

Environment and transport committee chairwoman Moraig Lyall said she was “very pleased and not a little relieved” to see the project finally progressing.

“We speak a lot about empowering communities and Cullivoe is a community which has demonstrated forward thinking and a go ahead attitude which has taken forward multiple projects to increase future resilience,” she added.

“The ability for them to move forward has been hampered by the poor condition of the existing road which led to a moratorium on further development in the area.

“So I feel it is incumbent of us as a council to put in place the essential infrastructure to enable this community to continue to thrive.”

Mrs Lyall also expressed hopes the road could support the council’s work on seeking tunnels for the North Isles.

Development committee chairman Dennis Leask seconded the motion, noting the “significant risks” if the road were left as it is.

A report on the proposals warned the current road was struggling to cope with the requirements of the fishing and aquaculture sectors, which both use the road to transport salmon and whitefish  – worth £149m – from Cullivoe Pier south to market.

It said the road had been built in 1851 and designed for use by horse and cart.

Shetland South councillor Allison Duncan raised questions about the costs and procurement and said these issues would be considered by the audit committee, which he chairs.

Further concerns were raised by Shetland Central member Catherine Hughson, who questioned how other roadworks would be affected by the project and its use of council staff to carry out the surfacing work. 

Mrs Hughson also noted her disappointment that North Isles businesses had not seen fit to contribute to the project’s cost – although she accepted they had likely seen it as being a statutory function of the council.

Shetland South member Robbie McGregor raised a general frustration about delays caused by “bureaucracy” and suggested savings could be made if the council made quicker progress on projects.

But convener Andrea Manson said the council officials were dealing with public money and needed to “make sure we get it right” - suggesting Mr McGregor had been unfair to criticise the time this took.

Shetland Central councillor Davie Sandison highlighted the strategic importance of the project, noting how a major part of the Shetland economy had been “under a cloud” for quite some time due to the poor condition of the current road. 

He suggested the project was not just a critical part of Shetland”s infrastructure but important for the whole of Scotland too.

Mr Sandison said he was “very concerned” about the costs – and he hoped savings could be found as the project progressed.

North Isles councillor Ryan Thomson also raised the national significance of the project - and its importance to council finances in the form of harbour revenue, which is worth around £500,000 a year.

“There are questions that councillors still have about the delays to the project, questions I trust will be answered in a full and transparent manner later in the meeting, because the project has been incredibly frustrating to witness the delays in it,” he added.

While Mr Sinclair was unable to go into details about the delays, he said the increased costs had arisen after the council went to tender. 

Although officials produced estimates for the work, he said the “acid test” was when tenders came back from the bidders.

Chief executive Maggie Sandison said the discrepancy was due to Shetland’s “saturated market” with many competing projects resulting in higher costs.

Shetland North councillor Andrew Hall suggested the increase in costs from just over £5m in 2021 to the latest estimate of £13.3m was “really substantial”.

And with the report indicating there could be further costs as the project progressed, Mr Hall sought assurances from the SIC’s roads manager, Neil Hutcheson, that there would not be further spending requirements. 

M Hutcheson said lots of preparatory work had been undertaken to arrive at the estimates – but he acknowledged the nature of road engineering projects meant it was not a set figure.

“There is a possibility it could go up but equally it could come down,” he said.

Shetland firm CW Johnson Plant Ltd is the preferred bidder for the civil works, which are scheduled to begin next month and take two years to complete.