Another one-sided contract

Prepare yourselves, I'm going to break with my morals and do something that is quite rare. Agree with Ken Livingstone.

Metronet, or Craponet as I commonly refer to them as, the consortium tasked under the massively flawed PPP to refurbish the London Underground system are demanding £600m from taxpayers to fund their £1.2billion overspend on refurbishment works. Metronet, which consists of Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, Thames Water, EDF Energy and Atkins, has abandoned hope of reaching a settlement after London mayor Ken Livingstone told them that the problem was of their own making. Basically sying that they should shove their request.

Now, Ken (for once) has a bloody good point. Craponet's overspend it down to the way they operate. After all, before starting any refurbishment project they conduct a survey, then hold a survey of the survey, then survey the findings of that survey, and then hold another survey to see if the findings of the findings are suitable to start the project. You can see where this is going can't you. But it doesn't end there.

Once the project actually begins Craponet flood the place with more contractors than is required, botch the repairs and then have to start again. Anyone who uses Tower Hill station will notice that.

So, how is it London Underground or TfL's fault? Well, quite frankly it isn't. But that hasn't stopped them trying to claim half of that overspend back. According to today's business section of the Times, Livingstone will be forced by the Underground's public-private partnership arbiter Chris Bolt to pay well over half the reported cost overruns of up to £1.2bn which it incurred in its first four and a half years of operation.

However what I find bizarre is that after Ken wasted all that money trying to get the PPP overturned in the courts, only to be told that the contract was water-tight, Craponet seem to be perfectly able to request a review of its 30-year contract in order to get its hands on our money.

Seems a little bit of a one-sided contract that Labour negotiated for London.