Tuesday 2 March 2010

West End primary and nursery schools' project

Having received queries from constituents about the change to the capital cost of the St Joseph's Primary and Park Place Nursery and Primary schools projects, the City Council's Director of Finance has responded to my enquiries as follows :

"The original costs were a very first estimate. The revised costs are based on detailed designs and ground surveys. The main reasons why the project has moved from £10.3m to £11.5m are as follows:

1. Programme

The Education Committee report 69-2009 was based on a site start of Q1 2010. The revised site start date of Jan 2011 is a full year later which leads to increased inflationary costs.

2. Floor Area

The area of the building has increased due to the following:

- The circulation space for 2 single stream schools with a flexible classroom arrangement that can be used by either school is higher than a conventional 2 stream school.

- Although a 3 storey design solution offers advantages, for example more outdoor plan area, the internal design requires additional stairwells and lifts to operate effectively as 2 separate schools and comply with current building regulations.

- The nature of this site and the specific requirements of the shared campus mean that it would be very difficult to plan the nursery as an integrated facility within the main building structure. However, a separate nursery is then less efficient in terms of ground area required."