Wirral Council revamps contracts procedure after Oval swimming pool overspending

Feb 3 2010 by Liam Murphy, Birkenhead News

WIRRAL Council has revamped its procedures for handing out major contracts after admitting spending on refurbishing a swimming pool ran out of control.

The revamp of the Oval in Bebington was initially expected to cost £2.4m but ended up costing more than £3m.

The £600,000 overspend has been reported to the authority’s ruling cabinet, which will meet on Thursday to consider the report.

It says negotiations with the contractors had been lengthy and “protracted” but “additional costs were successfully reduced to an acceptable agreed final figure”.

The problems with the Oval refurbishment were well publicised at the time, when five lanes were tiled into the floor of the pool and had to be ripped up to create six lanes – at an additional cost of £70,000 – to allow swimming competitions to take place there.

Although part of the Oval centre was opened to the public on October 16 the remodelled “Pool Hall and Changing Village” finally opened on November 24, 2008, some ten months after it had been expected to re-open in February/March that year.