States should 'plan slow, deliver fast' on big projects

A senior civil engineer has said the government should take more time to plan for costs and timescales of major infrastructure projects, to avoid having to announce delays at a later stage.

Earlier this month it was announced Guernsey's new critical care unit has been delayed and will cost more than agreed, after issues with fire safety.

The is the latest of a number of high profile projects in Guernsey to have been delayed in recent times.

Jonathan Spruce, trustee for policy and external affairs at the Institution of Civil Engineers, said large projects are "inherently full of change".

Last month a damning report into the MyGov venture, which hoped to digitise government services, found it had wasted £21m with no meaningful benefit to islanders.

Other projects to have faced challenges include Alderney airport's runway where spades are still not in the ground after costs shot above the agreed £24m for long awaiting repairs.

A new pot of money was agreed earlier this year and Deputy Yvonne Burford now hopes work can be underway by 2027.

Despite the difficulties these schemes have presented, Health and Social Care President George Oswald said he remained confident the States could be responsible for large projects.

He said: "I think we've learned, clearly there have been issues I don't deny that, and we need to learn from how we've managed these."

On the critical care unit, which was initially due to open in 2024, Oswald said: "We could have done without this there's no question about it and we are looking into exactly why we are in the situation as we are now and that process continues."

For remedial works, Oswald said he had been given a figure range but wouldn't reveal what that was.

"The cost is moderate rather than high," he said,

"The actual final figure won't be known fully until the project's completed because it's on a cost plus basis.

"We'll get a pretty good estimate as the year goes on as work goes on."

Spruce said political pressure is often the reason behind big infrastructure projects, in Guernsey and elsewhere, consistently hitting hurdles.

"A lot of the time governments will seek to define cost and timescales quite quickly," he said.

"We've seen that a number of times with lots of big projects in the UK, such as the Olympics, and HS2, where a rush to define cost and timeframes quite quickly before there has been a level of the details of design being done.

"Often [that] leads you into a difficult situation because of the numbers and the timeframes that people remember."

Spruce said governments should take more time behind the scenes before announcing big projects, which could avoid budget and timescale issues and embarrassing readjustments and announcements of delays.

"It's almost plan slowly and deliver fast," he said

"We need to be much more aware of how planning more thoroughly gives us a much better estimate of cost and time-scale.

"Whereas this rush to announce something quite quickly often leads you into difficulty."

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