Cambridgeshire busway: Bid to reclaim £80m repair bill

The guided busway links St Ives with Cambridge and Addenbrooke's Hospital

A second round of legal action has been launched against the company which built Cambridgeshire's busway, in a bid to reclaim more than half of the £150m construction costs.

The county council settled a £36m dispute against BAM Nuttall in 2014 and is now looking to claim a further £80m.

The busway, which links St Ives to Cambridge, opened in 2011 after delays and financial rows.

BAM Nuttall said it was "disappointing" the matter was in the High Court.

Cambridgeshire County Council's legal claim includes the correction of all the identified defects and the cost of the repairs already made.

In a High Court document, the council claims it has received "no adequate justification" from the contractors for the foundation depths it has constructed.

BAM Nuttall said "anything wrong with the busway design, for which BAM Nuttall is responsible, we'll put it right"

It said BAM Nuttall had not factored in "the expected movements of the foundation" and there were "errors" in its calculations.

On the balance of probabilities, it said, the foundations would not meet the required lifespan of 40 years.

The council also cited "inappropriate infiltration drainage design", missing and incorrect information in maintenance manuals and the provision of dirty and contaminated concrete beam moulds.

The council said it had used third parties to try to correct the defects and "claims a sum to be assessed by the court as the cost to correct the defects... or alternatively as damages for breach of contract".

BAM Nuttall said: "Anything wrong with the busway design, for which BAM Nuttall is responsible, we'll put it right.

"In the six years since the council's consultants alleged that the busway would need hundreds of interventions each month, this has not come to pass. The engineering evidence shows that it will not come to pass in the future.

"BAM is confident that we'll demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the court that the design of the busway is not fundamentally defective and doesn't require the remedial works, which the council claims."