St. George's: Problems with Lorries

A number of residents have alerted us to some serious concerns regarding the redevelopment works at St. George’s school which started two months ago.

Prior to the works beginning, we spent a significant amount of time negotiating with the building contractor to ensure the impact on local residents would be minimised as much as possible. We managed to get agreement on three important things to do this:

• a reduction in the size of the site compound;
• that the compound will be moved in mid-2010 away from Glasgow House upon completion of the major part of the works on the new sports hall;
• that the number of lorry movements would be limited to an average of 5 per day and would not occur before 9.15am without prior permission of the Estate Office.

Lanark and Glasgow residents have been in touch over the last couple of weeks to say that the builders have not adhered to the agreement on lorry movements. We immediately took this issue up with the builders and with the Council department coordinating the activity and raised again raised it at two meetings (last week and this).

The builders do appear to have allowed much larger number of lorries on to the site on numerous occasions since the end of May, apparently because of “unforeseen soil conditions” (whatever that is).

We have been very clear with the contractors that this is completely at odds with the agreements that they voluntarily signed up to only a few months ago. Furthermore, having publicly committed to being a considerate neighbour, to break those commitments within a few weeks is not an auspicious start for a project which will take several years to complete.

As a result, an unequivocal apology letter will shortly be distributed by the contractor to all affected residents.

The contractor has also committed in the letter to the following:

• that from 13th July, the number of lorries visiting the site will be limited to 6 per day (unless the Estate Office have been notified in advance);
• that they will write to their suppliers outlining that lorries should not arrive at the site before 9.15am not after 6pm (and should not all arrive at once causing traffic). In addition, a traffic marshall will be deployed outside of these times to try to stop lorries entering Lanark Road ;
• that no works will be carried out before 8am or after 6pm;
  that extra checks will be made on the generator to ensure it is switched off at night (and so not causing noise for nearby residents), and;
  that a new “Resident’s Hotline” (0800 083 5575) will be set up so residents can inform the contractor of any problems or issues they have.

As local Councillors, we are extremely disappointed by the contractors early failure to adhere to the agreements that we put in place – and we have told them, in no uncertain terms, our thoughts. The letter will not make up for the inconvenience that local residents have experienced over the last few weeks but we hope that the message has now got through to the contractor that they will have to consider local residents during the build.

Going forward, we’ll keep watching the contractor to ensure they are keeping their end of the bargain. Thanks to those residents who got in touch with us to report the problems with the lorries. We hope there won’t be but, if there are any further issues going forward, please do get in touch again – and we will take it up again.

Alastair, Jan and Lee