Transport Scotland has admitted to the five month delay on the construction of the Queensferry Crossing, following several reports in the press.

The crossing is now scheduled to open in May 2017, rather than the original opening date of December 2016.

Forth Crossing Bridge Constructors (FCBC), the contracting joint venture, has told Transport Scotland that due to the unexpected winds experienced in the Firth of Forth, the bridge will now not be finished until next May.

Transport Scotland insist that the bridge will not be opening late as FCBC is officially contracted to complete the work by June 2017. Therefore, they say the crossing will be opening with one month to spare, rather than six months early as they had initially hoped.

The firm added that since September last year the time lost because of adverse weather conditions, in particular strong winds, has been 40% as opposed to the contractor’s initial prediction of 25%/

In a statement, the client organisation said that FCBC believed that they would be able to mitigate the impact of weather, until the last two months.

April and May saw 13 and 12 days lost because of weather respectively, and as a result the target completion date has now been pushed back significantly.

FCBC has tried to mitigate the weather’s impact by running several activities in parallel and increasing resources, but they are now coming into the most complex stage of the bridge’s completion.

The firm has also tried to lessen the impact of the weather by trying to make critical construction sequences more efficient, altering methods of construction, increasing working hours, increase the number of staff by 100 workers and procuring further physical resources.

However, they have now come to the point where additional resources will not be enough to ensure the December delivery date because of the work’s complex technical nature.

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