A COMPANY that owns Barry Caravan Park at Carnoustie and Thornton Caravan Park in Fife has been ordered to pay a Dundee-based contractor more than £70,000 for work carried out at both sites.
Tayside Contracts had sued Shoreline Management Ltd of Douglas, Isle of Man, for a total of £70,979.77 after they had refused to pay for the road surfacing work which had been completed by the contractor in 2008.
Shoreline Management Ltd had lodged a counter claim against Tayside Contracts for £84,417.98, claiming that would be the cost of replacing the “defective” resurfacing work at both sites.
Following a hearing at Dundee Sheriff Court, a sheriff dismissed that claim and ordered Shoreline to pay Tayside Contracts £38,967.29, plus VAT for work completed at Barry Caravan Park and £32,012.48 plus VAT for work at Thornton Caravan Park.
At the hearing, the court had heard that Tayside Contracts had previously carried out work at Barry for the caravan company in 2007 with no problems.
In May 2008 Shoreline Management Ltd approached Tayside Contracts again and asked for more light vehicle road laying work to be done, with no kerbing work to be involved.
Initially the cost was put at £30,084.90; however, an additional area was to be laid with eight more speed bumps and edging work, bringing the cost up to almost £39,000.
That work was completed and Tayside Contracts were requested in August 2008 to carry out road resurfacing work at Thornton Caravan Park, costing just over £32,000.
No payment was received for either contract, the court heard, and no complaint was made about the work until after Tayside Contract raised the action for payment.
The court also heard that following completion of the contracts, Shoreline Management Ltd carried out further development works themselves, using vehicles substantially heavier than the 3.5 tonnes recommended for the road surface Tayside Contracts had laid.
As a result, damage was caused to the roads. At Thornton, Shoreline was said to have damaged the roads by cutting service ducts and not properly reinstating or sealing the surfaces.
Inspectors found that a minor fault caused “ponding” at speed bumps but Tayside Contracts were not made aware of that until the action was raised in court.
Tayside Contracts said that they would have been willing to carry out repair work on that had they been asked, and stated it would have taken about 15 minutes to carry out the remedial work, which involved cutting out a channel.
The sheriff ruled that the work completed by Tayside Contracts was fit for purpose.
The sheriff also ruled that Tayside Contracts were not in breach of any material terms of either contract and are entitled to full payment of £70,974.77, plus interest at 8% per annum.
Shoreline Management’s counter claim for reinstatement work of £84,417.98 was repelled by the sheriff, despite them producing an “expert” who stated that most of the defects had been caused by “sub-standard performance of the contractors”.
The only way to correct that, the expert claimed, was to “start again from scratch.”
In addition, the expert said, borehole tests had shown that the surface was not laid to the contractual thickness.
However, the sheriff dismissed that evidence and came to the conclusion that Shoreline Management had misled Tayside Contracts to the extent and weight of traffic expected on the sites, in particular at Barry.
The sheriff ruled that Shoreline Management had “failed to establish the counter-claim and Tayside Contracts were entitled to be paid in full.”
awilson@thecourier.co.uk