The investigation revolves around a dispute between Taylor Woodrow Facilities Management and Technical Access Construction on the project to build a sewage treatment plant. The subcontractor is suing Taywood for £750 000 for moneys and business it claims it lost as a result of working on an effluent discharge plant at the base.
The MOD probe began in April when officials started looking through Taywood’s files on the project. “We thought it was just an audit,” said a Taywood spokesperson. The MOD has confirmed that an investigation is taking place.
Alex Gee, proprietor of TAC, said his company was originally awarded the £99 000 contract by Taywood in December 1997.
After a series of delays, TAC was told to stop work in March 1998. It was then told to resume work in May 1998. By the time TAC finally left the site in January this year, it had overrun its deadline by 10 months.
TAC claims that the reason for the delay was that Taywood and MOD officials had failed to gain Environment Agency approval for the plant. It also alleges that it was not informed of this, and that as a result of lost work and withheld payments it suffered losses totalling £750 000.
Charlotte Turner, a water quality consenting officer at the agency, wrote to the MOD on 13 August 1998.
She said: “I am very concerned about the lack of consultation with the agency, and the fact that this [effluent tank] has been installed prior to the issue of consent.”
The client then sent a letter to the contractor to express its concern. The author, Major ACP Goodin of the Royal Engineers, wrote to Ian West of TWFM to complain of “the woeful lack of communication between TWFM and the Environment Agency regarding application for discharge consent at RAF Western-on-the-Green. That we appear to have ridden roughshod over legal statutes is embarrassing in the extreme”.
At this point, Taywood had still not obtained Environment Agency approval for the tank.
A Taywood spokesman said: “We have paid TAC more than they have shown they are entitled to. We offered them independent arbitration late last year which they refused. The matter is now with our lawyers.”
The results of the probe are due to be published soon. It is understood that other contracts at another RAF base have also been drawn into the investigation involving another main contractor.
