Issue details

To award the contract for Stage 2 of a Design And Build scheme for the construction of Fareham Innovation Centre Phase 2

Due to the success of Fareham Innovation Centre, in June 2016, the Executive agreed to develop a second phase.  A new scheme adjacent to and linked with the existing building was designed, planning consent was granted and tenders were invited using the Southern Construction Framework.

Under this Framework, the tender process is in two stages and in February 2017 a Stage 1 tender was accepted for the pre-construction phase from Morgan Sindall Construction.

Since then, Morgan Sindall has progressed through the detailed technical design stage and carried out pre-construction enabling works on the site and have now submitted a Stage 2 tender for the construction work.

When the extension was originally considered, a budget was agreed for a building of 3,000m², and authority was granted to the Director of Finance and Resources to accept a tender if it was within the capital budget. The detailed design has been completed and this has resulted in the building totalling 3,400m², some 13% larger than envisaged at the time of the Executive report, and consequently the total project costs have risen by 7% from £6.6m to £7.071m. These costs are still within the Cost Plan developed by the Council's cost consultants as the design progressed.

The scheme was the subject of a funding bid to the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership under the Government's Local Growth Deals scheme. This was successful and has resulted in a funding contribution of £2m towards the total cost.

Accordingly, the authority of the Executive is sought to accept the tender.