SCOTLAND'S biggest road-building project was thrown into confusion last night after the European Commission was asked to investigate claims ministers broke the rules over the contract.
The Scotsman has learned that a formal complaint was lodged with the EC over the Scottish Government's handling of the main contract for the controversial M74 extension in Glasgow.
The Greens claim ministers and the companies involved in the tende
r process broke two key European Union directives and are calling on the EC to intervene and halt the project.
The official complaint is the latest stage in what has been a protracted battle between the environmental lobby and the Scottish Government over the £500 million project.
While the complaint to the commission represents the last possible attempt to stop the M74 extension, it is also one of the most serious and potentially most important moves by the environmentalists so far.
If the EC does decide that ministers broke the rules, then, at the very least, it will put back the project by several years and could even signal the end for it altogether.
The extension is designed to link the M74 to the M8, west of the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow. The five miles of motorway are estimated to cost about £500 million.
The project has been backed by business groups, local authorities in the area and the current Scottish Government – it was previously supported by the Labour-led Scottish Executive.
Green campaigners have mounted a vociferous campaign against it, however, claiming the new road would cause serious damage to the environment.
The complaint, from an individual member of the Green Party but backed by the party's MSPs, alleges possible anti-competitive practices, cartel activity and unlawful state aid in connection with the M74 project.
The Greens are focusing on the decision by four potential bidders to combine as one consortium to tender for the work, and the decision by ministers to unify two contracts into one, moves that the environmentalists believe were anti-competitive and against EU rules.
Patrick Harvie, a Green MSP, said he hoped the European challenge would give ministers time to "look again at the whole process" of the M74 extension.
He said: "
Labour, Lib Dem and now SNP ministers must all take a share of responsibility for this failed process. Awarding a contract under these circumstances would be reckless in the extreme, especially given the power the commission has to cancel any contracts retrospectively if the process does break European law."
Mr Harvie, a Glasgow MSP, went on: "The Scottish Government must think very carefully about whether to proceed with this fundamentally ill-conceived project."
The Greens have acted now because a tough new directive from Europe was issued in the past few weeks, making it clear the EC would crack down hard on any anti-competitive practices in government procurement.
That directive makes it clear any contracts found to be anti-competitive would have to be ripped up and the process started again.
The environmentalists believe this latest directive gives them a good chance of halting the M74 contract, and delaying the project indefinitely.
There have also been unconfirmed reports that the Scottish Government is preparing to agree terms with the contractor in the next ten days, and the Greens want the commission to intervene before that happens.
The Greens claim ministers allowed four companies to join together into one consortium to bid for the work and, in doing so, failed to comply with article 81 of the treaty establishing the European Community.
They also allege that the companies that came together to form the consortium represented a "cartel", which prevented others from competing equally for the work.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government agency Transport Scotland said last night: "We are not aware of any complaint and would not comment further unless there was a formal case to answer.
"The M74 completion project has been properly audited and we believe the tendering process complies fully with procurement law. As with all major infrastructure projects, legal advice was sought at every step in the process."
Negotiations between Transport Scotland and Interlink M74, the consortium of Balfour Beatty, Morgan Est, Morrison Construction and Sir Robert McAlpine, should have finished last April.
A key concern has been to keep down the cost in the absence of competing bids. The final bid was not submitted until November, with Transport Scotland now having just ten days left to strike a deal by the end of the 90-day statutory period, on 7 February.
Completion of the project has been pushed back to 2011, and it now remains to be seen whether that will be delayed further.
A history full of controversyTHE M74 extension – one of Britain's biggest urban motorway projects – has been dogged with controversy since it was conceived as part of a Glasgow inner ring road more than 50 years ago.
While supporters argue it is the final piece of the city's motorway jigsaw, providing a short cut for through traffic, opponents believe it will just generate more traffic which will soon fill up the new road.
The other sides of the planned motorway "rectangle" around the city were completed with the M8 and M73 in the 1970s. But a five-mile gap to the Kingston bridge has remained since an initial extension of the M74 to Carmyle in the south-east was opened in 1994.
Plans to complete the scheme were lodged the following year despite campaign group Glasgow For People warning of "motorway madness" and Labour councillors being accused of ignoring the party's anti-motorway building policy.
The scheme received planning permission in 1995, but a funding dispute between councillors and ministers delayed it until the Scottish Executive agreed in 2001 to provide most of the £245 million cost, with the road to be completed by this year.
Two years later, nearly 400 objections were lodged and ministers admitted the scheme would cost £375-500 million – up to double previous sums.
They said this was partly because significantly more contamination than expected has been found on industrial land the road would cross.
The scheme became mired in the most significant controversy to date when ministers gave it the go-ahead in 2005 despite a public inquiry recommending it should be rejected.
Richard Hickman, the inquiry reporter, said the project was "very likely to have very serious undesirable results" and its congestion benefits would be "probably ephemeral".
Environmental groups launched a legal challenge to the decision the following year, but later abandoned it because of the likely cost of losing.
Transport Scotland said the case added £20 million to the cost, with completion now due in 2010.
However, the project was further delayed after it emerged that only one bid had been received for the building contract in October 2006.
The full article contains 1140 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
