Agenda item

To consider the project update information and to review progress against the planned mitigations and actions.

52.1          The report of the Tewkesbury Garden Town Programme Manager, circulated at Pages No. 59-65, provided a brief update on the progress of the Ashchurch Bridge Over Rail project, including expenditure incurred to date, the impact of the programme delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and a review of the specific risks within the corporate risk register. Members were asked to consider the update and progress against the planned mitigations and actions.  

52.2          The Tewkesbury Garden Town Programme Manager explained that she was the operational lead for the project and had been working closely with Gloucestershire County Council and its technical consultants, Atkins, throughout. She indicated that this was an extremely challenging subject for the Borough Council and she was very grateful for the expertise provided by those two organisations. She also advised that she completely understood the Audit and Governance Committee’s interest in the project given the scale of external funding involved and the obligations and liabilities that were attached to that.

52.3          In highlighting some aspects of the report to provide reassurance that the team was robustly reviewing and managing risk, she explained that the project was to deliver a new road bridge utilising the Housing Infrastructure Fund grant from Homes England. This had come forward because Homes England and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government wanted to help unlock some of the development land identified in the Ashchurch masterplan. The grant funding had been in place since December 2019 and in the last eighteen months the project team had made steady progress on the preliminary design through to the submission of the planning application. The Planning Committee had approved the application at its last meeting and the project team was now working on the detailed elements, noting that working in a rail environment added further challenges. In terms of finance, the report noted the Council had expended around £600,000 but, as of the end of March, £679,000 had been spent against the grant of £8.132 million. Currently the Council was carrying that expense as it had been working on the obligation to provide ‘clean land title’ for Homes England before grant drawdown but, as of yesterday, Homes England had confirmed it would be processing the first claim so the Council would get £600,000 of the HIF grant in this financial year. This was a positive outcome given the amount of hard work it had taken to collate the evidence for Homes England to support the claim; the obligation to provide clean land title had been deferred as it was understood the complexity and sensitivity of the current negotiations with the landowners the Council was working with made it challenging to finalise the land acquisition strategy quickly. The balance of expenditure on the project would be carried forward and, as the Council would be in a more regular cycle of claims with Homes England, it should not need to borrow to the same level again from the Borough Development Reserve. There was commentary against the risks which were fundamentally about delay and the risk of repayment should the project fail or not be delivered. There had been slippage on the project, mainly owing to the COVID-19 pandemic due to not having access to sites and not being able to fully utilise contractors etc. The team had been working through the implications and there was now a plan in place with the project team regrouping and the critical path of the project being reviewed and updated. The project was carrying a delay of one year to eighteen months and this was understood by Homes England. Formal amendment of the project delivery dates would require a Deed of Variation to the HIF funding contract which would have to go through Committee. The project team was now working through the detailed design stage and liaising with landowners and key stakeholders such as Network Rail for the construction phase planning. There was a lot of work ahead, but now the project had planning consent and the Council’s first HIF grant claim had been approved, the project would get back onto an even keel. The Tewkesbury Garden Town Manager undertook to prepare an update report for Executive Committee and advised that she would also be updating the corporate risk register and could review the new risks with the Audit and Governance Committee should Members wish to.

52.4          A Member understood the project had been held up due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the initial timeframe had, in her view, been relatively tight anyway. She questioned whether, now the bridge had received planning permission, it would be possible to build it in the originally allotted time of 12-months, whether an extension had to be agreed with Homes England, and whether there were cost implications to the Council if it could not agree an extension. In response, the Tewkesbury Garden Town Manager explained that, in some respects, the contract and paperwork was out of date as it still talked about delivery/grant drawdown by March 2022 but the team would have had to be onsite by now if that was to be the case and Homes England accepted that this was now unachievable. As a project team there was confidence the delay would remain at one year to eighteen months but that was dependant on completing the necessary surveys in the next few months and being mobilised on site by this time next year. When the critical path was mapped out the contract milestones would be formally amended, confidence gained in the key delivery dates and the project plan would be reset. There were a large number of agreements and consents required, particularly in working with Network Rail and they would have to be worked through systematically. The Member also queried what the value of the preliminary design work that had been carried out was. In response, the Tewkesbury Garden Town Programme Manager advised that the fact there was a bridge design was deemed to be an asset so, in theory, it had a recognised value which could be recouped if required.

52.5          In terms of the clean land title which had been referred to, Members were advised that this was an expectation from Homes England and basically meant the project team had done as much as it could in respect of land registry checks in terms of ownership and understanding anything that would stop the bridge from being built. Homes England had now taken the time to understand the position the Council was in with its wider land acquisition activity and consequently why the clean land title was not easy to achieve at this stage in the project.

52.6          The Chair thanked the Officer for her report and advised that he would like to ensure the Committee was kept updated. The project was a large financial output/risk to the Council and the Audit and Governance Committee was keen to ensure it stayed on track and in line with budgets. In response, the Tewkesbury Garden Town Programme Manager advised that the project risks would be reviewed in conjunction with an update report to the Executive Committee.

52.7          Accordingly, it was

                 RESOLVED           That the project information and progress against the planning                             mitigations and actions be NOTED.