1.16 Construction on the Royal Liverpool project started in February 2014 with a planned completion date of March 2017. However, in May 2014 Carillion found asbestos in the ground on the site and made a claim against the Trust for the cost and delay this would cause. Between 2014 and the end of 2016, Carillion made several more claims for delay to the Trust for various causes including bad weather, issues with the power supply and the discovery of further asbestos. These claims were disputed by the Trust and were not resolved at the time of Carillion's liquidation. In May 2017 Carillion informed the Trust that the project was delayed by 11 months and Carillion and the Trust agreed a revised timetable to completion.
1.17 In December 2016, a construction worker discovered a crack in one of the concrete beams in the third floor of the building where the weight of the upper floors, which are set at an angle to the lower floors, transferred to the lower structure. Carillion investigated while work continued during 2017 and found cracks in three beams. By December 2017, just before Carillion went into liquidation, the hospital was at a late stage of construction, with interior fit-out almost complete. Carillion told the Trust that the issues with the beams would be fixed by February 2018 and estimated that the build should be complete by mid-April 2018, 13 months late.
1.18 In April 2018, after Carillion collapsed, the PFI company commissioned Arup to review the structural design, including the safety concerns indicated by the cracked beams, and perform a fire safety review. To assess the structure, in which the upper floors are offset from the lower ones, Arup produced 3D models of the building and discovered that the original design had significant shortfalls. Arup produced an interim report at the end of April 2018 that identified serious problems with the structure of the building and that it needed strengthening in several locations.
1.19 In September 2018 Arup reviewed the external cladding of the building and found that it did not conform to the relevant fire regulations. When estimating the costs to complete Royal Liverpool in August 2018, the Departments' 'recovery group' working on the two projects (paragraph 2.11) estimated that the cost of fixing the cladding was £5 million. Further work has since revealed that the cost of fixing the cladding will be about 10 times this initial estimate and that there may also be deficiencies in the internal fire protection and the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.
1.20 By October 2018 the number of parts of the structure that required significant rectification had increased to about 100. Arup proposed design solutions for each of these parts, to be addressed by around 70 structural interventions including new steelwork and reinforced concrete. These required some interior walls, wiring, piping, and heavy machinery and equipment to be stripped out, mainly across three floors of the hospital. In some cases this involved innovative engineering solutions.