Vince Cable

The National Audit Office has carried out an official investigation into what happened at the National Physical Laboratories where the major £140million project to rebuild the facilities should have been completed in 2001 but is now not likely to be completed until 2007 at the earliest. Residents in Admiralty Way, in particular, who have faced continued disruptions, have already protested to the council and MP Vincent Cable about the delays.

The report argues that the delay was caused by the extreme complexity of the project and a defective design by the original promoters of the Private Finance Initiative (in 1998). When the project got into difficulties the contractor (John Laing) went bust, saving the tax payer a great deal of money, though there were severe delays as a result.

Vincent Cable said: "I have been pressing the DTI, which owns the National Physical Laboratory, to be clearer about when it will finish the project since the residents of Admiralty Way have had six additional years of disruption. But the new labs are very fine and the tax payer has been saved a lot of money by the shifting of risk onto the contractor".