Wellington North council has awarded a $1.8-million contract for the Rick Hopkins bridge rehabilitation to McLean-Taylor Construction Ltd.
Wellington North received almost $1 million in provincial and federal funding, which was to cover two-thirds of the project.
Three tenders were received for construction, the lowest coming in at $1.57 million excluding tax and contingency.
The increase of $323,000 over the original cost estimate caused concern for councillors.
“There are a number of factors there, time and the condition of the bridge got worse,” explained Andy Ross of B.M. Ross and Associates.
The higher costs included an item to allow unlimited pedestrian access to the bridge during construction after residents expressed concern.
“There were multiple offers and lots of interest in the project but the pricing was fairly competitive and these are the numbers that came in,” said CAO Michael Givens.
Councillor Sherry Burke said she wanted to discuss where the extra funds would come from.
Givens said the extra cost would be pulled from the sewer life-cycle reserve as a three year, zero per cent interest loan because the roads infrastructure reserve would not be able to cover it.
He added there could be some balancing of the capital projects throughout the year.
“Although we’ve laid it out as the full ($323,273), we’re certainly hopeful that the other projects that we will proceed with this year will come in under budget and that will help offset some of the need for the loan,” said Givens.
“We need have those discussion around those projects that are still in the budget that we didn’t get the funding for,” said Burke.
“I don’t want to make is sound like I don’t support the Rick Hopkins bridge project, I do because it’s a very important project, my concern is where we’re pulling the money from,” she added.
Councillor Steve McCabe added, “I think the Hopkins bridge probably outweighs any project we have on the books right now.”
Detour
Amy Noone and Jen Innes residents of Mount Forest came to council as delegations to ask council for a different detour route than the one currently planned.
The two represented residents of Murphy, Glasgow, Clyde, Ayreshire and Oxford streets who sighed a petition to have council change the detour route.
Noone explained that during 2011 construction of the same bridge, traffic was routed through her neighbourhood and became an issue. Noone commented on the disregard for speed and stop signs. She also expressed concern for the 35 children that live on those streets.
The group asked for council to either route traffic through a different way, leave one lane open during construction or, at the very least, have increased signage throughout the detour.
Aston explained that one of the big drivers for current re-route plan was to encourage small vehicular traffic through downtown business. He added for any other route back to the highways around Mount Forest they would need to acquire the Ministry of Transportation approval.
Burke suggested having two reroutes, one for local traffic and one for cottage or through traffic.
Givens told the delegates that staff would be doing a better job than 2011 and they had options for speed controls.
Staff added in a provision about a pedestrian access in their tender with an increase of $18,900.
