New readers can start here:
Pompeypaul,
I’m not saying this is all true, but it is a summary of what lies in the previous pages. It may well be true but in order to keep the lawyers at bay, let me just clarify, it’s just what I read here and in the papers and from the Council’s own Internal Audit Report.
Many years ago, the West of Scotland had a few very nice small airfields, which pretty much ran themselves, and everyone was happy.
Then the Council got involved, spent ****loads of other people's money and cocked it up big time. The plan was to make the airport into a proper travel facility for kids living on the islands to travel by plane to school on the mainland.
They applied for licence they don't need. Had a tower built facing the wrong way, which wouldn't matter if it had windows all the way round like most towers, but...............
The contract period for the Oban airport terminal building extended well
beyond that envisaged at the tender stage and beyond the period after an
extension of time was granted. This was due to additional work required to
accommodate changes to the Control Tower.
Then they bought a Fire Engine that is too big to go in the Garage for it, and that meant they could not get a licence.
Three suppliers returned tenders for the Oban Airport fire and rescue vehicles;
the lowest was not considered because Strategic Finance was not satisfied as
to their financial standing. The second lowest was discounted as the tender
was non compliant. The accepted tender was £53k. more expensive than the
lowest compliant tender. The accepted supplier failed to meet his contractual
obligations and the contract was terminated in April 2007. Recovery of monies
paid to the supplier in the sum of £161,280 under this contract is being
pursued by Legal and Protective Services but remains unrecovered as of the
date of this report.
With hindsight it may have been worth the risk to have accepted the lowest
tenderer (discounted on basis of financial standing) No risk assessment of
this possible action was carried out at the time. Irrespective of the accepted
suppliers ultimate performance £53k. may have been saved under carefully
managed circumstances. Perhaps where substantial savings can be achieved
consideration should be given to suspending Standing Orders under
controlled conditions.
The specification for 2 rescue and fire fighting vehicles at Oban airport
prepared by external consultants required “Landrover” type chassis and ABS
braking. However the fact that Landrover do not fit ABS braking on their
chassis resulted in the recommendation of the vehicle body being constructed
on a relatively untried chassis. There appears to have been no attempt by the
external consultants to verify that Angloco had worked previously with a
Breamach Chassis.
The vehicles were due for delivery from Angloco in Mid January 2007.
Following a pre build meeting in July 2006 attended by the external
consultants and an unsatisfactory pre delivery inspection by the Council’s
Senior Airport Fire Officer in November 2006, the inspection trip to verify
achievement of specification took place in March 2007 and was carried out by
the Council’s Senior Airport Fire Officer, during which major performance nonconformities were identified.
They got a construction firm in to build a runway, and destroyed the road to the airport by doing so, which meant spending more money rebuilding the road.
A very large quantity of aggregate material was required to be transported across Coll to the airfield site and in the process extensive damage was incurred on the island road. While the contract sum included an allowance (approx. 7.5%) for temporary road repairs the actual cost was hugely in excess of this with temporary repairs costing some £190k. and permanent
reinstatement some £650k. It was considered that the allowance in the contract would cover temporary and permanent repairs to the equivalent of 1.5 kilometres when in fact some 8.5 kilometres were permanently reinstated.
They started all this when they had sitting tenants on the airfield, with a 25 year lease. Having told the CAA that the council controlled the airfield, they then found out that the tenants were not happy with some changes and refused to go along with them. After years of arrive and fly, the locals were told to report to the main building, sign in, wear a hi viz, only walk on the path, call for startup, pay landing fees before speaking to the refueller man, the list of changes (to a system that worked fine) is huge and entertaining.
As a result of what might be called Civil Disobedience by the locals, the CAA refuse to allow the airport to use the entire runway, so the School Plane can't operate. The council have no money to pay the operator anyway and even if they had a full runway to play with, they can't get a company interested in doing the flights without a huge subsidy. Who'd have thought that would happen?
The locals take the Council to court, and the law sides with the locals but still the Council persist in trying to run the show.
To bring you up to date, the business case that was the basis for the 9 million quid, at least, that the council spent on this, has proven to be what lots of us could see from the start...pish.
People have been promised jobs that were made of straw and now have been made redundant. The proposed, "fly the kids to school" plan has never been in any danger of working out.