S T A N D I N G C O M M I T T E E O F T Y N W A L D C O U R T O F F I C I A L R E P O R T R E C O R T Y S O I K O I L B I N G V E A Y N T I N V A A L P R O C E E D I N G S D A A L T Y N ENVIRONMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE POLICY REVIEW COMMITTEE Douglas Promenade Scheme HANSARD Douglas, Friday, 19th July 2019 PP2019/0111 ENVI-PROM, No. 1/18-19 All published Official Reports can be found on the Tynwald website: www.tynwald.org.im/business/hansard Published by the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. © High Court of Tynwald, 2019 STANDING COMMITTEE, FRIDAY, 19th JULY 2019 Members Present: Chairman: Mr R E Callister MHK Miss C L Bettison MHK Mr C R Robertshaw MHK Clerk: Mr R Phillips Assistant Clerk: Miss F Gale Contents Procedural ........................................................................................................................................ 3 EVIDENCE OF Hon. Ray Harmer MHK, Minister; Mr Nick Black, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr Jeff Robinson, Director of Highway Services, Department of Infrastructure............................. 3 The Committee adjourned at 11 a.m. and resumed its sitting at 11.07 a.m. ................................ 20 Procedural ...................................................................................................................................... 20 EVIDENCE OF Mr T Baggaley, Regency and Penta Hotels; Mr A Brockhouse, Sefton Group; Mr N Fogg, Cunard Hotel Ltd; Ms K Harvey, Sleepwell Hotels Ltd; and Mr D Staunton, Paparazzi Restaurant ............................................................................................ 20 The Committee adjourned at 12.12 p.m. ....................................................................................... 38 __________________________________________________________________ 2 ENVI-PROM/18-19 STANDING COMMITTEE, FRIDAY, 19th JULY 2019 Standing Committee of Tynwald on Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review Douglas Promenade Scheme The Committee sat in public at 10 a.m. in the Legislative Council Chamber, Legislative Buildings, Douglas [MR CALLISTER in the Chair] Procedural The Chairman (Mr Callister): Good morning and welcome to this public meeting of the Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review Committee. I am Rob Callister MHK and I chair this Committee. With me this morning are Miss Clare Bettison MHK and Mr Chris Robertshaw MHK, along with our Clerks. 5 Today we will be hearing evidence about the ongoing project to redevelop Douglas Promenade. We will be hearing evidence first from the Department of Infrastructure, which has responsibility for the project to refurbish the Promenade. Later, we will be hearing evidence from representatives of a number of businesses based on the Promenade. Before we begin, can we please make sure that all mobile phones are switched off or on 10 silent, so we do not have any interruptions. For the purpose of Hansard, I will also be making sure that we do not have two people speaking at once. EVIDENCE OF Hon. Ray Harmer MHK, Minister; Mr Nick Black, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr Jeff Robinson, Director of Highway Services, Department of Infrastructure Q1. The Chairman: Thank you so much for attending this morning. For the record, could I ask each of you to state your name and the capacity in which you are attending this morning. 15 The Minister for Infrastructure (Mr Harmer): Ray Harmer, Minister for Infrastructure. Mr Black: Good morning. Nick Black, Chief Executive, Department of Infrastructure. Mr Robinson: Good morning. Jeff Robinson, Director of Highways, Department of 20 Infrastructure. The Chairman: Thank you, and good morning once again. __________________________________________________________________ 3 ENVI-PROM/18-19 STANDING COMMITTEE, FRIDAY, 19th JULY 2019 I think the Department has already outlined many of the challenges and the difficulties encountered with the Promenade Scheme so far, since September 2018, on social media and 25 local media this week, so we are going to just jump straight into questions. I know you have limited the session to an hour, so we will jump straight into questions. Q2. Mr Robertshaw: Good morning. Minister, the Committee this morning are clearly and obviously very interested and concerned about the interaction between the delivery of the 30 contract and the circumstances businesses and residents in the area find themselves in. It was always very clear that this was going to be an extraordinary challenging and demanding major engineering project, so could you outline to us in short what it is that you built into the contractual arrangements to make sure that you were able to flex and deal with that quite difficult interaction in a successful way? I say that particularly because there have been 35 suggestions in various conversations that it was now down to the contractor, so we need to understand how you set those contracts up in the first place. The Minister: Thank you. I do not know if it would be helpful if I just briefly go through some background information. 40 The Chairman: You can, Minister, but you have limited us to an hour, so I really want to make sure we get questions answered very briefly today, if possible. So, yes, you can, but briefly, please. 45 The Minister: Right, okay, in which case I will go directly to the question. In terms of one of the things that obviously, from a political point of view, was very important and came into the Tynwald debate very strongly when we talked about the length of the contract was that even though we were first talking about a number of years and would come down and settle to three years, there was immense pressure to complete it as soon as possible and obviously keep 50 disruption to a minimum but to complete as soon as possible. So, on that basis I have been very keen, as the political steer – and I have been very strong on the team – that we must deliver within that contract. That is why two very key parts of that contract ... Number one is that we had contractors from the UK involved in the contract process, so that we could really test and whoever would win would win, if you see what I mean, but also it was important that we had 55 proper penalties, and also, in awarding the contract, that we had proper recognition of timescale and confidence in delivering that timescale in the award of the contract. Those are very key elements and, as you know, there are penalties for being behind schedule as well as rewards for being ahead of schedule. So, for me, from a political steer, a very clear political objective from Tynwald was that this 60 needed to be completed in good time, the contract should reflect that and accommodate the fact that the Department had this in the contract. Q3. The Chairman: Minister, we are conscious of time and we have got a lot of things to get through. Can you just outline for the record what those penalties are and what the awards are 65 you just mentioned? The Minister: Correct me if I am wrong – I believe it is £3,000 per day for penalty and £2,500 as a bonus if it is completed ahead of schedule. 70 Q4. Mr Robertshaw: Okay, thank you for that answer, but that is very much a DoI contractor engagement, and in that answer one can see tensions and difficulties building up which may very well – and it comes back to my question – put us in a position where it creates tension between the contractors trying to deliver and the businesses trying to operate. What element of understanding of the circumstances businesses find themselves in were built into that contract? __________________________________________________________________ 4 ENVI-PROM/18-19 STANDING COMMITTEE, FRIDAY, 19th JULY 2019 75 The Minister: I believe there was a lot of consultation prior to the contract. Jeff, you probably have more detail. Mr Robinson: Yes, there was a lot of consultation with organisations such as the Chamber of Commerce and Douglas Corporation. I believe most of the businesses on the Promenade were 80 contacted and many attended presentations and workshops ahead of the project beginning. In terms of the impact on the businesses, we tried to build that, as much as we could, into the programme and where we have not been as successful as we could have and should have been in that process, we have tried to work with the businesses in the best way we can to resolve their problems. So, we have put in additional parking spaces where we had not originally 85 intended to put parking spaces and we have tried to create far more coach drop-off points and motorbike parking access points in order to try and alleviate those problems that are particularly being felt by the businesses that rely on passing trade, which are suffering a great deal. The length of this project, in terms of the impact on individual businesses, is probably a little on the unusual side and something that is taking us slightly into an uncomfortable position. 90 Q5. Miss Bettison: I think we would all recognise there have been some things that have happened since the project started in terms of mitigating against the effect, but the things primarily that have really helped have been things that have had to happen reactively rather than proactively. So, why were these things not considered in the first place? 95 The Minister: To answer that in part, if you recall, I sent a letter and consulted on the general constraints on 1st May 2018. Why that was important was to identify the scope of the disruption of what we would do, what was acceptable and what was not acceptable.