M20 - Cork to Limerick [preferred route chosen; in design - phase 3]

Tech3

It looks like if you get the land for the scheme CPO'd it has a good change of going to construction through the PPP process .

The construction cost of the M17/M18 project could be less than the actual CPOing of it.

Sponge Bob

I doubt if the CPO will cost anything like that. It will be a fraction of the cost of the road itself . In fact i would say the entire planning process and CPO will cost maybe 1/5th of the Road.

This project is the only one that has to be fully CPO'd. Many of the other PPP projects have already been CPO'd and the offers that were made stand at what are frankly ridiculous prices by current standards. Gort - Athenry and north of Arklow are largely bought and often fenced. Newlands Cross is a forest of empty car dealerships that are frankly pretty worthless so a CPO now would not cost a vast amount there.

For this class of road the land take is crudely about 200 Hectares every 30 km. Each Hectare costs about €20-25k nowadays so the land purchase costs are not hugely significant , a few €10s of millions I reckon.

The road itself based on the Wills N18 contract is €4m-€5m a km. Planning Archeology and consultantfest extra, but largely spent, and obviously hitting a house along the route will cost more than €20k a hectare.

This road is roughly 100km so the land would cost something like €12m the lot I reckon , planning etc in the very high €10s of Millions and the road itself around €400m-€500m to build.

The PPP is for the latter amount only. It will cost the government around €40m a year for 30 years unless this Greek government business spoils matters some more.

That's a guesstimate to help the lobbying down south, I personally hope the M18/M17 route is open long before the M20

L1011

Wasn't Newlands X already CPOed and is mostly using land to the south anyway? There's already been some enabling works done in the moving of gas pipes there...

New Ross must also be done by now, cause the CPOs are in grave risk of expiring if it isn't!

Chris_5339762

Sponge Bob wrote: »

For this class of road the land take is crudely about 200 Hectares every 30 km. Each Hectare costs about €20-25k nowadays so the land purchase costs are not hugely significant , a few €10s of millions I reckon.

Yup, M17/18 CPOs are being offered €9000 per acre, much to their complaint.

Sponge Bob

The price of an average acre in Connacht was €10k in 2008 so of course it has fallen since. Inevitably I must say that doing nothing for a whole year saves the NRA €10s of millions in land and construction costs. Those CPOs were due last year. In the UK land is worth €5000 an acre, averaged. My last post was Hectares and this one is all Acres so you do the math if you are confused m'kay.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0305/agriculture.html

Price of farmland fell 21% in 2008 Thursday, 5 March 2009 15:37


The price of agricultural land fell by 21% last year, with Co Limerick seeing the biggest reduction.


A new 26-county survey in the current issue of the Irish Farmers Journal, shows that the national average price for farmland in 2008 was €15,800 an acre. This was a drop of 4,300 an acre or 21% on the previous year.



The biggest fall, 41%, was in Limerick, followed closely by Galway on 40% and Sligo with a 39% drop in prices.

The cost of an acre in Leinster was €19,500; in Connacht it was €10,500.


The author of the report, Shirley Busteed, said the main reason for the fall in land prices was that speculators have stopped buying.


It is now a farmers market, she said, and they are not willing to pay as much.


(and neither is anyone else I say )

Knight Frank estimated it was €7k-€8k an acre ( €16-€18k a Hectare) in 2001 and 2002, that is a fair price IMO and maybe bring it to €10k for the hassle.

Munster land was €16k an acre in 2008 down from €22k in 2006.

http://www.knightfrank.ie/documents/Farms%20Market%20-%2009.pdf

HOWEVER most of the savings are on construction costs

Politicians GREATLY exaggerate costs to make projects sound more expensive than they are. The gobdaws in the local media regurgitate this.

http://www.face.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054991628&page=4

How a €92m contract became a €200m road . Explained.

Tech3

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I doubt if the CPO will cost anything like that. It will be a fraction of the cost of the road itself . In fact i would say the entire planning process and CPO will cost maybe 1/5th of the Road.

The thing I dont get though is the email I recieved in the past from the NRA that the whole road (M17/M18 scheme) will cost in the region of 700million euro.

If we take the construction cost given 5million a km it would be 285 million. And say the the CPOing/ other costs may be 57-100 million.

Where is the rest of the money going?

Sponge Bob

tech2 wrote: »

Where is the rest of the money going?

Well land acquisition planning and archeology would be no more than €100m so how do they turn €285m into €600m. That is quite easy. A PPP is a sort of Mortgage.

Enter 285 over 30 years at 6.7% here and press the summary button. Oh look, €600m

Add the €100m and poof you have €700m and the government pays €1.65m a month every month for 30 years ....more if traffic levels are exceeded I would think because of the extra wear and tear.

Crude but generally indicative calculation.

cjpm

Cork to Limerick M20 gets go-ahead

02/02/2010 - Evening Echo


Work will begin on the long-awaited M20 Cork to Limerick motorway this year, despite Cork’s national roads funding being slashed.

The Department of Transport confirmed yesterday that €9m has been allocated for the first phase of the M20, between Blarney and Croom, Co Limerick.

There had been speculation in 2009 that the M20 project would be postponed indefinitely because of a lack of funding for road works.

However, of the seven national roads projects moving forward to the Compulsory Purchase Order stage in 2010, two of these are in Cork — the M20 Cork to Limerick and N25 Carrigtwohill to Midleton.

County manager, Martin Riordan, welcomed the allocation of finances towards the M20 and N25, but admitted he was disappointed with the level of maintenance funding, down almost €1m on the 2009 allocation.

Cork County Council will also have an increase in funding for bridge management and rehabilitation on national Primary roads of more than €1m.

Cork city and county were granted a combined total of €3,058,300 for national road maintenance in 2010 announced by Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, compared to a total of €6,198,429 for 2009 (€3,505,429 for the county; €2,693,000) in 2009.

Cork County Council has been allocated a total of €36,314,420 (down from an allocation of €66m last year) as part of the €1.115bn for improvement works and road maintenance under the programme this year, while Cork City Council has been allocated just €751,800 in total.

Fine Gael Deputy Bernard Allen said: “The truth is that this allocation is derisory and totally inadequate to meet the current unprecedented demands being placed on local authorities to maintain a safe and efficient road network.

Minister for Trade and Commerce, Billy Kelleher welcomed progress on the M20 Cork to Limerick motorway, saying it was vital to the future economic development of the Cork region.

The 82km motorway will link Blarney to Croom, Co Limerick.

Minister Kelleher said: “This motorway is critically important to the development of Cork as a region in terms of improving accessibility, connecting us up to other primary population and economic centres and creating a strong regional balance.”


I should prob clarify that i wouldn't ever buy the Echo even if i ran out of Bog Roll
A friend of mine told me about the article so i googled it this morning.... I'd fully concur with Sponge Bob's opinion of the rag.

Sponge Bob

cjpm wrote: »

Evening Echo Work will begin .....

What an absolute gob****e that journalist is and what an even bigger gob****e the editor is. The Limerick papers are much better researched and written, even their freesheets

Work never STOPPED on this road for the past 3 years. It has been in route selection and engineering design and EIS preparation during ALL that time.

Work will continue in 2010 but we knew that it would...what was at issue was the tempo of the work and whether it would have been run down to a skeleton staff owing to lack of funds.

That will seemingly not be the case.

mysterious

So which section will begin. Croom to just north of Mallow? (Adare bypass)

cjpm

mysterious wrote: »

So which section will begin. Croom to just north of Mallow? (Adare bypass)

AFAIK the CPO for the entire route is to be done this year, when it goes to tender it will be divided into 2 40km long schemes.

munchkin_utd

2 sections, one of which is

M20 Cork to Limerick (Southern Section)

Local Authority: Cork County Council
Start County: Cork
End County: Limerick
Description: This project, which forms part of the Letterkenny to Rosslare Atlantic Corridor, consists of approximately 42 km of new motorway commencing at Blarney near Cork City and ending north of Mallow in Co Cork. It includes a number of bridges, grade separated interchanges, parallel and link roads.

http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/CorkCountyCouncil/M20CorktoLimerickNorthernSection/SchemeName,16492,en.html

The northern section I would presume is the rest, but the NRA website is wonky so no blurb on that.

This strategy, in my sceptical opinion, smells very much like a way to get the more important and busy Mallow to Cork City commuter part up and running first, pushing the much less trafficed section north of Mallow to a later date.
(similar maybe to the N3 upgrade north of the Meath border which is now definitely changed from a 50km one off rebuild to a phased upgrade in light of the new economic reality)

Chris_5339762

Absolutely nothing will start and there will be no diggers on the ground. Make no mistake about that. What a crappy piece of journalism.

Yes, there is €9million being given to CPOing process which is good and is progress. But there is absolutely no money there for BUILDING it. Plus, its a PPP, so it will take about 2 years to sort out the tendering. I would still be surprised if this STARTS before 2015.


Edit: DONT GET EXCITED ABOUT THIS GODAWFUL PIECE OF JOURNALISM. IT TELLS US NOTHING WE DIDNT ALREADY KNOW

Sponge Bob

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Absolutely nothing will start and there will be no diggers on the ground. Make no mistake about that. What a crappy piece of journalism.

Most especially not the archaeologists. Looks like 2011 or 2012 before they arrive onsite

Plus, its a PPP, so it will take about 2 years to sort out the tendering. I would still be surprised if this STARTS before 2015.

2015 would be a generous start date, 2014 at the very earliest.

wingfo

Small as it is progress is being made, at least the project is not on the backburner.

mysterious

munchkin_utd wrote: »

2 sections, one of which is
http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/CorkCountyCouncil/M20CorktoLimerickNorthernSection/SchemeName,16492,en.html

The northern section I would presume is the rest, but the NRA website is wonky so no blurb on that.

This strategy, in my sceptical opinion, smells very much like a way to get the more important and busy Mallow to Cork City commuter part up and running first, pushing the much less trafficed section north of Mallow to a later date.
(similar maybe to the N3 upgrade north of the Meath border which is now definitely changed from a 50km one off rebuild to a phased upgrade in light of the new economic reality)

The most needed section is from Mallow to Croom. Its a windy horse and cart road that goes through towns and villages. The accident rate is totally unacceptable. The section of road needs to upgraded now.

Mallow to Blarney is a high standard WS2 lane road with some 2+1 and DC sections.

If they made this motorway first it would put further strain on this worst national primary section of road in the country. I find this very concerning. Because the The Atlantic corridor will be motorway from Tuam to Patrickwell, and the other the end From Mallow to Cork, leaving the worst possible stretch a two lane dirt track.

The plan was to start the Croom (Adare) to south of Buttement stretch. first.

Irish and Proud

mysterious wrote: »

The most needed section is from Mallow to Croom. Its a windy horse and cart road that goes through towns and villages. The accident rate is totally unacceptable. The section of road needs to upgraded now.

Mallow to Blarney is a high standard WS2 lane road with some 2+1 and DC sections.

If they made this motorway first it would put further strain on this worst national primary section of road in the country. I find this very concerning. Because the The Atlantic corridor will be motorway from Tuam to Patrickwell, and the other the end From Mallow to Cork, leaving the worst possible stretch a two lane dirt track.

The plan was to start the Croom (Adare) to south of Buttement stretch. first.

...yeah, it would make horse sense to start with the northern section and 2+1 the remaining S2 sections south of Mallow.

Regards!

Zoney

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Absolutely nothing will start and there will be no diggers on the ground. Make no mistake about that. What a crappy piece of journalism.

Yes, there is €9million being given to CPOing process which is good and is progress. But there is absolutely no money there for BUILDING it. Plus, its a PPP, so it will take about 2 years to sort out the tendering. I would still be surprised if this STARTS before 2015.


Edit: DONT GET EXCITED ABOUT THIS GODAWFUL PIECE OF JOURNALISM. IT TELLS US NOTHING WE DIDNT ALREADY KNOW

I wouldn't get so worked up. The more journalistic spam like this the better so that people are anticipating the M20 happening sometime. Better 2015 than never!

mysterious

There is no reason why this route cant be fastracked, last year the government fast tracked this, and the stupid idiotic TD white elephant planning got into this with New ross and M11 schemes. That should wait till after this one. I'm sick and tired of the SE getting all these new roads while the M20 constantly been put back.

Its not acceptable.:mad:

fresca

mysterious wrote: »

There is no reason why this route cant be fastracked, last year the government fast tracked this, and the stupid idiotic TD white elephant planning got into this with New ross and M11 schemes. That should wait till after this one. I'm sick and tired of the SE getting all these new roads while the M20 constantly been put back.

Its not acceptable.:mad:

I think that most people will agree with you that it is not acceptable.
However, it is government policy.
I understand that the East coast has a greater population than the West coast. If this government could move the entire population to the East coast it probably would!! Instead of overtly doing that, it enforces an economic policy that ensures rural depopulation and migration to the greater dublin area. This means that it is real easy to use demographic-based justification for decision making.

For example, the proposed Atlantic Corridor does not pass through the most westerly county in Ireland.

wingfo

mysterious wrote: »

There is no reason why this route cant be fastracked, last year the government fast tracked this, and the stupid idiotic TD white elephant planning got into this with New ross and M11 schemes. That should wait till after this one. I'm sick and tired of the SE getting all these new roads while the M20 constantly been put back.

Its not acceptable.:mad:

Again with the econmy as it is very little is going to be fastracked in the
near future just look at the recent flooding fiasco, the money is just not
there, so i would take what they are giving for now even though i would
agree with your point.:(

munchkin_utd

total tangent, sort of.
I was trying to get a link to a costing , even a rough one of the cost of this 80km of brand new motorway between Limerick and Cork.
I havent come across anything yet though, except maps and detailed engineering reports.
Can anyone actually provide a link to a government (or other official) document and tell us what this new road will cost to build?

If the M3 cost 650Million for 59km of mainline (according to SIAC, and thats 49km motorway and 10km N3 offline upgrade), then very very roughly the 80km for Cork to Limerick would be in the region of 880 Million Euro.

KevR

I would say that land aqcuistion for the M20 will cost a lot less than it did for the M3.

E.g. - €20,000 per acre on the M6 Galway-Ballinasloe during boom times. €9,000 per acre on the M17/18 Gort-Tuam during the downturn.

Roryhy

I'd say 600-700million by todays money. They're not going to release their estimates until after the tendering process is complete as this would jeopardise the process. Its like metro north in Dublin, only rumours as to how much it will cost.

cjpm

KevR wrote: »

I would say that land aqcuistion for the M20 will cost a lot less than it did for the M3.

E.g. - €20,000 per acre on the M6 Galway-Ballinasloe during boom times. €9,000 per acre on the M17/18 Gort-Tuam during the downturn.

I would imagine the land costs will be about 15k - 20k per acre, despite the downturn, a lot of the land is superior to that on the N6 and M17/M18.

17km (about 1/5th of the entire scheme) is to be on-line widening, thus reducing the costs for land and some civil works, abeit alternative roads will be needed in locations.

Plus the contractors will be submitting seriously competive bids due to the lack of work out there. I heard that Kerry CC thought that the Castleisland Bypass would cost in the region of 25m (ballpark) and apparently the winning tender was 12m. It really is getting cut-throat for any work.

Roryhy

When i read €12m i thought to myself that that was great value for money. I looked into it and found that they first expected it to cost €27mil and this was undercut to make it between €20-25mil. Is it possible you might have heard €21mil rather than €12mil? seems a bit of a leap.....

cjpm

Roryhy wrote: »

When i read €12m i thought to myself that that was great value for money. I looked into it and found that they first expected it to cost €27mil and this was undercut to make it between €20-25mil. Is it possible you might have heard €21mil rather than €12mil? seems a bit of a leap.....

A guy working for a different contractor that missed out on the job told me that, in a pub.....

It was supposed to be cancelled, but it was so cheap (relatively) it was allowed to go ahead. If you listen to Dempsey, Healy-Rea or the NRA on about this "fantastic scheme" you would imagine it's a huge motorway.... the sad reality is that its 4km of single carraigeway!! albit a badly needed one for the town..

P.S. Sorry folks for getting so off topic!

The Word Is Bor

cjpm wrote: »

A guy working for a different contractor that missed out on the job told me that, in a pub.....

It was supposed to be cancelled, but it was so cheap (relatively) it was allowed to go ahead. If you listen to Dempsey, Healy-Rea or the NRA on about this "fantastic scheme" you would imagine it's a huge motorway.... the sad reality is that its 4km of single carraigeway!! albit a badly needed one for the town..

P.S. Sorry folks for getting so off topic!

I had heard a figure in/around 12M as well. Ascon/BAM effectively bought the job. The contract was signed on the day of the budget back in early 2009 as there was a fear that it would have been cancelled to appease Gormless.

Tech3

12 million was allocated for the construction during last year. Another 10million was handed to BAM for this years work it was announced lately. So 21 mill in total.

cjpm wrote:

the sad reality is that its 4km of single carraigeway

The majority of it is type 2 dual carrigeway. No it's not out of this world but it's a bypass and it's needed. It's an improvment on the N21/N22./N23 as it affects most of that traffic. Adare is a lot worse though.

Roryhy

Lets go around the bogs on this scheme:rolleyes: