Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place)

The Cabinet considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place) that sought the approval of updates to the Coventry Station Masterplan Programme.

The Coventry Station Masterplan was approved by the Cabinet in March 2015 (minute 126/15 referred). It aimed to meet the needs of a fast growing City and create a fitting gateway to the City. An updated masterplan was approved by the Cabinet on 24^th January, 2017 (minute 101/17 referred), with further approvals granted for the proposed procurement strategy on 28^th November, 2017 (minute 80/17 referred) and land acquisition on 13^th February, 2018 (minute 119/17 referred).

The Coventry Station Masterplan would deliver a new footbridge, extended canopies, bay platform, a new station entrance onto Warwick Road with shops, a multi-storey car park, bus interchange and new highway infrastructure. Following the award of City of Culture 2021, the project programme had been reviewed with a view to accelerate completion from summer 2021 to autumn 2020 to ensure the new station was ready to welcome visitors during 2021.

The recent tendering exercise for the footbridge and canopies had demonstrated significant inflation in the rail sector. In response to this an exercise had been undertaken to review the cost estimates for the rest of the programme, with a focus on scrutinising construction costs to benchmark against current market rates in order to provide an updated and robust cost overview. The report included the proposed measures to manage cost and de-risk the programme to ensure the masterplan could be delivered within the approved £82m funding envelope.

The change in programme would result in 385 rail parking spaces being taken out of use during construction of the car park and bus interchange.  To reduce the compensation claim from the car park operator, Virgin Trains, for loss of revenue, a temporary car park with 196 spaces was proposed south of Westminster Road. Cabinet approval was sought to add this car park to the Council’s off street car parking order and to approve the proposal for reimbursing Virgin Trains for loss of revenue. The car park could be delivered within the £82m funding envelope and would provide an opportunity to generate income to reduce cost risk.

In order to further de-risk the project, the southern section of the proposed western link road connecting Central Six Retail Park to the Ring Road had been omitted from the scheme. This removed the risk of potential objections to the planning application from key stakeholders, a lengthy Compulsory Purchase Order process and a potentially significant compensation claim, which would be outside of the available project budget. The link road would be completed in a future phase of the Friargate Masterplan.

Cabinet approval was sought for the addition to the masterplan programme of the extension of the pedestrian boulevard up to the front of the existing station entrance, which could potentially be funded from the contingency budget if funds allowed, or alternatively additional funds would be sought.

Other value engineering options were being explored: the Bus Interchange could be value engineered by reducing the building size and internal fit out, to be delivered within the funding envelope. The revised scope would still be required to support the same capacity of buses serving the interchange and could also reduce the overhead for operational costs.

The Station Masterplan scheme also included changes to the layout of the Station taxi rank, which was being relocated to create a traffic free route in front of the rail station. In order for the station franchise operator to continue to issue permits to taxi drivers to pick up passengers from the Station, Cabinetapproval was required for freehold transfer of a piece of land (edged red on the plan attached as Appendix 1 to the report) to Network Rail which was to be included in the new proposed taxi rank and within the operational station lease area.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet:

(1) Notes the award of a contract to Buckingham Contracting Ltd for the delivery of the new footbridge at a contract value of £9.3m with an appropriate level of contingency being set aside, the sum of which is stated in the private section of this report, allocated within the overall £82m funding envelope already approved.

(2)    Approves that the delivery of a section of the link road into Central Six Retail Park (as shown in Appendix 2 to the report) has been removed from the Coventry Station Masterplan programme of works for the purposes of de-risking the project.
 

(3) Delegates authority to the Deputy Chief Executive (Place), following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Jobs and Regeneration, to finalise a revised scope within the Coventry Station Masterplan Programme scheme which delivers a revised Highway layout (illustrated in Appendix 2 to the report), an extension to the pedestrian boulevard (illustrated in Appendix 3 to the report), and potentially a reduction in scope of the bus interchange to keep the overall programme within the £82m funding envelope.

(4)  Delegates authority to the Deputy Chief Executive (Place), in consultation with Cabinet Member for Jobs and Regeneration and the Director of Finance and Corporate Resources, to manage the scheme and funding element as a whole programme, reallocating funds, including contingency between each work package to assist in programme delivery timescales.

(5)  Approves the undertaking of the necessary procedure to allow Westminster Road temporary car park (as shown in Appendix 4 to the report) to be added to the Council’s Off-street Parking Places Order.

(6)  Approves that Westminster Road temporary car park is managed and operated by the Council as a pay and display car park and that the tariff structure introduced at Westminster Road car park is consistent with the charging structure at the nearby Grosvenor Road public car park and other long stay Council car parks in the city centre.

(7)  Approves within existing budgets the proposal to reimburse Virgin Trains for loss of revenue from rail car parking provisions during the construction phase and delegate authority to the Deputy Chief Executive (Place), following consultation with the Director of Finance and Corporate Resources, to agree the appropriate mechanism for paying Virgin Trains compensation due via the statutory Station Change process.

(8)  Approves freehold transfer of a piece of land (edged red on the plan attached as Appendix 1 to the report) to Network Rail which is to be included in the new proposed taxi rank and within the operational station lease area to enable taxi permits to be issued.

(9)  Approves in principle (following the construction of the bus interchange) the completion of a legally binding agreement between the City Council and West Midland Combined Authority (Transport for West Midland) or such other third party on a revenue cost neutral basis to the City council for the operational management of the bus interchange. Any management arrangement for the bus interchange which does not result in a revenue cost neutral position for the City Council shall be brought back to the Cabinet for approval.

(10)  Delegates authority to the Deputy Chief Executive (Place), in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Jobs and Regeneration and the Director for Finance and Corporate Resources, to undertake all necessary due diligence and to finalise the terms of the management arrangement for the bus interchange on a revenue cost neutral position.