Kier Northern built leisure center with defects

This post has already been read 2981 times!

Kier Northern built a Scottish leisure center for £17m for Dumfries and Galloway Counciland which opened in 2008 but the defects have been criticised by experts who have called the work carried out as “beggars belief”.

The DG One facility in Dumfries shut in October last year to investigate ongoing problems with the building work that was carried out by KIER and the estimated cost of repairs is estimated at between £6m-£10m.

Dumfries and Galloway Council said that the repairs would not start until mid autumn 2015 and would take 18 months to complete in the mean while the facility would remain closed.

Construction experts have been examining the centre and discovered a range of problems all of which have not been fully quantified.

The council commented “These investigations, which included emptying the pool tanks and exposing steel reinforcement, have taken longer than expected because of the nature of what has been found.

“The results of these further expert investigations have shown that the nature and extent of the defects within DG One are even worse than originally thought.”

The local authority is seeking a compensation claim from Kier and will not invite them to tender for the repair works that must be caried out.

It commented further: “Kier Construction Limited accepted the responsibility for providing a building which had to meet certain specific standards.

“A number of these standards were clearly not achieved by Kier. We remain of the view that Kier are fully responsible for the defects within a building that is only 7 years old.

“We have the very best independent experts and legal team supporting the claim against Kier Construction Limited and we will endeavour to reclaim all associated costs.

Alex Haswell who is director of community and customer services, told the BBC: “Dumfries and Galloway Council very much regret having to close DG One and the disruption caused to our valued customers and to the people of Dumfries and Galloway.

“We had to close the building to allow further extensive, intrusive investigations into the condition of the building in order to discover all the defects.

“The serious nature and extent of the defects discovered beggar belief.”

A spokesman for Kier Construction commented: “The investigation at DG One Leisure Centre is still ongoing and the findings from technical experts are yet to be concluded.

“It would therefore be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time.”