By Michael Holmes
You can also read this article on The Lead here

Town hall officials have been locked in a behind-closed-doors row with builders working on the multimillion-pound Talbot Gateway scheme, which includes the heavily delayed tramway extension and four-star Holiday Inn hotel.

Recent testing on the tram track, which saw Bombardier trams travel between the new interchange next to the Blackpool North railway station and the Promenade, appears to have gone well, with an official opening date of 12 June now announced.

But concerns have been raised about how long the work on the extension and interchange, hotel and underpass has taken, with the scheme hit by several setbacks.

In recent months, senior councillors have met privately – with the press and public banned from proceedings – to discuss "an ongoing dispute with the contractor", a document obtained by The Blackpool Lead has revealed.

A council spokesperson refused to name the firm involved and, asked if the authority has pursued legal action, said: "We simply cannot discuss the contract".

The interchange and extension, which was due to be finished in July 2019, according to a previous town hall response to a freedom of information request, have cost £23.4m, the "same as the original estimate", the council said.

The hotel and associated works were given a price tag of £34.6m, but this time the authority refused to say if that figure has changed since original estimates.

There are several known factors behind the half-decade delay on the tramway extension, which has cost the council – and therefore the taxpayer – years in lost fare revenue at the least.

Some work had to be redone because it was not carried out properly, including on the Talbot Square tram stop, while the quality of paving in some places was called into question. There was a list of more than 100 defects in total, including boot prints in asphalt, standing water and a pothole. 

A Resilience Pathway paving stone, installed as part of an £11m mental health project, was damaged. Rumours that the tracks were built either too close together or too far apart were dismissed by the council as "simply not true".

Work on the interchange, 144-room Holiday Inn, Marco Pierre White's New York Italian diner and retail units, all built on the old Wilko site in Talbot Road, was also held up because of delays to the extension of the Houndshill Shopping Centre, where the retailer was due to move (but did not).

That meant work to demolish the Wilko building, which included a multi-storey car park, did not start until September 2020.

But even estimated finishing dates after then were wrong – with the council saying last year that the hotel and tram extension would be open by the summer.

"Technical problems with some of the cladding on the building" were then discovered, it was reported in Blackpool Gazette last June.

An updated deadline of "just before Christmas" was also missed.

The council spokesperson blamed a "combination of factors" for the delays but said "finalising the Wilko demolition and completing the hotel and underpass are the primary reasons".

The pandemic also impacted work for "at least/over 12 months", they added.