Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place)

The Cabinet considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place), which sought approval of an additional £1m from the Capital Programme, offset by reduced borrowing costs, in respect of the Salt Lane Multi-Storey Car Park Development, to allow the procurement to proceed to award of contract and construction thereafter.

Coventry City Council adopted the City Centre Parking Strategy in August 2016. The strategy recognised that demand for off-street car park would increase during the next decade in line with the growth of the local economy and the transformation of the city centre.  It was recognised that ultimately demand would out-weigh the number of spaces available and that investment was needed in order to ensure a sufficient amount of parking spaces were available in the right locations.

On 24 January 2017, Council and Cabinet considered a linked business case for the development of new multi-storey car parks at Salt Lane and New Union Street in the city centre.  The business case and the recommendation for the addition of £10.7million to the capital programme funded from the corporate capital resources for 2017/18 and 2018/19 for the development of a new 600 space multi-storey car park at Salt Lane on the site of the existing surface car park was approved.

During 2017, officers appointed consultants to progress the detailed designs of the proposed scheme and had subsequently secured planning permission. Design works had been undertaken in conjunction with stakeholders and Cabinet Member for City Services.

The Cabinet noted that the Salt Lane site was constrained by a large underground BT duct carrying multiple fibre cables which run across the site from the BT exchange. It had been necessary to work with BT to agree a strategy to enable the car park construction works while ensuring continuity of the BT services.  This has culminated in BT requiring an assurance duct, at an additional cost to the project of £682k, to be installed prior to the commencement on site by the preferred contractor. These costs were not known at the time of the previous report.

To facilitate the additional works required by BT, it would be necessary to remove two redundant underground fuel tanks at an estimated additional cost to the project of £50k - 100k. There was an associated risk that the removal of the tanks may identify that the surrounding ground is contaminated.

Associated with the building of the multi storey car park were highway and public realm works.  The public realm element of the scheme was included within the public realm phase 5 programme which was approved by Cabinet on 6^th March 2018.  Together with fees, contingency, and the additional BT costs set out above it was expected that the revised budget required to deliver the scheme would be £11.7milion which represented an increase of £1million compared to the approved budget.

Prior to the award of the contract to the preferred contractor, approval was required for the additional capital funding that would be required to deliver the scheme.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet approve the addition of £1million to the capital budget, funded from corporate capital resources, for the delivery of the Salt Lane car park as approved in the Business Case report of January 2017.