Liverpool’s £9m Lime Street project delayed until spring

After contractor NMCN went into administration, the council stated it had legally terminated its contract for the scheme – which means months of delay.

The Lime Street development was meant to complete this December.

Liverpool City Council said that its highways department was already working to make the site safe in the interim and that it wanted to ensure that Lime Street would be accessible in the lead up to the Christmas season.

“A full assessment of the site will now take place to establish what works are needed to complete the upgrade, with officers also undertaking a review of the scheme,” a statement from the council reads.

The council said that it was aiming to put the project to tender before Christmas, with the goal for it to be complete by the start of spring 2022.

The Lime Street project was to create a new gateway into the city and an events space for St George’s Plateau. It would see the street reduced to a single carriageway in each direction and the addition of a cycle lane in the area.

NMCN had been the lead contractor for the project, but the Nottingham-based company collapsed earlier this month after failing to secure a loan to refinance.

The Lime Street roadworks are part of the council’s £500m Liverpool City Centre Connectivity programme, which aims to improve key routes, reduce car and bus traffic and promote walking and cycling.

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It’s a disgrace that the company went into administration..What is going on with these companies.It’s the same problem with the New Royal Hospital.

By Helen

This is an absolute disgrace , to casually aim for a next year completion ? really ? no concern again to the chaos caused by these folly schemes no body wants except the planners. Would love to see how my people per day use the cycle lane and the others created between October to April during the cold wet days and and months . Tokenism . Liverpool Council is a total embarrassment over seeing and lurching from one fiasco to the next .

By Paul M - Woolton

Dear Helen: The limited liability law was made for one purpose only: to protect the wealth of capital corporation owners. It also seduces executive managers to take excessive risks. If the ltd. corp. goes bankrupt, the owners (and annual bonus chasing executives) must not pay the creditors and financially disadvantaged a single penny, no matter how much profit they paid o themselves in preceding financial years. Limited liability was introduced against much protest; opposed by most factory owners and most banks. It was a law made by and for for what Daniel Adamson (father of the Manchester Ship Canal) called “the capitalist maggots of London” or speculative shareholders. It made “investing” just like gambling on horses. But for innocent honorable business partners it means: “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose”

By James Yates

This story runs and runs. It’s no problem as long as the finished work is acceptable
We have just had and maybe still are in the throws of a pandemic.

By Terry Waites

They took on a company who had just taken on board a refinancing backing to the tune of millions by investors n banks cos they were going under.. Let’s give them the contract, very suspicious indeed… The Council is embarrassing, look at the city.. It’s a show.. It really didn’t need this..

By Anonymous

What an utter shambles. Been a very bad year for Liverpool

By Steve

Do Councils not check the financial strength of Companies tendrering for contracts? If they do they need revisit how they do this as its not working..

By Dennus Boyd

Hey Paul – the Netherlands are just as cold and wet as Liverpool. Lots of cyclists all year BECAUSE they have safe and decent provision for cycling.
Bikes are a great way to get round a city. A car is a liability in any well organized city.

Also the company has gone bust. What do you expect the council to do ? Magic up a replacement ?
Where do you get the trained staff from ? Where do you get the hardware from ?
Big projects like these need planning.

By Les

Totally disgraceful. The place is a heap of rubble and no buses to take us near our beloved pier head.

By Robert

Local authorities, government and other public bodies are notoriously poor at contracting, particularly large capital works, they tend to just go for the cheapest option rather than consider value for money or the financial strength of the tenderer.

As for the traffic chaos in the city centre, there is a warped mentality that if we make it difficult for people to come into the city centre in cars then people will use public transport, they won’t, they will either continue to use their cars and the traffic chaos will continue or they won’t come in at all in which case the economy of the city will suffer. Anyone who is in the vicinity of the roundabout outside the Birkenhead tunnel will attest to this most rush hours. It can take up to half an hour to move from one end of Victoria Street to the roundabout some evenings.

By Philip G

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