May 2023 (b)

Although there has been no physical sign of the new community centre starting there have been major events happening regarding the building.

The first is the opening of the five competitive tenders from contractors at the beginning of March. We had planned a building estimated at £1.3million (which was how much we had, mainly from s106 funds). We realised that rising material and building costs would affect this price, so in April 2021, we requested a cost analysis from our independent cost consultants which predicted a probable increase to £1.5million. This was repeated in July 2022 following the events in Ukraine and the cost consultants raised their estimate to £1.8million. This, we believed, was still achievable with our local fundraising and the possibility of a loan to supplement the funds we had available.

What we, and nobody predicted, was the final tenders ranging from the lowest of £2.46million up to the highest of £2.95million which were significantly higher than the costs estimated by our cost consultants.

The obvious two questions are how did this happen and what now?

The ‘how’ is the most difficult to explain. There was a competitive tender process with ten firms expressing an interest and five of whom submitted sealed bids. We are as satisfied as we can be that the tendering process was open, competitive and reflecting current prices. It is little comfort to learn that we are not alone, and other building projects are seeing similar large disparities between actual and estimated costs. Our professional advisers share our disappointment with the outcome.

The ‘what next’ is easier to explain.

We have three options.

1. Continue with the existing basic design which has the benefit of having received planning approval. This will require us to attract additional funding or cost reductions or most likely a combination of the two.

2. Re-design a smaller building, but this will mean a new planning application and another round of tenders for a building that will be less spacious and less useful to our village.

3. Abort the whole project. If we do so the £1.3 million cannot be used for anything else and will have to be repaid to the developers with interest. We would also repay any donations, of course, but we are confident this option will not happen.

We have chosen the first option and have started the process of keeping the building as planned by:

A/ Talks between us, the architect and the lowest tenderer to try and reduce the cost. This is underway, as outlined in our May update, by reducing some of the higher building specifications originally planned while keeping to the eco-friendly target we set as a result of our village consultations.

B/ We have applied for a National Lottery Community Fund grant to fill the gap between the tender price and our money already raised. This could take up to three months before we know if we get funding.

The outcome of the tenders also means that any start to the building will probably be delayed by six to twelve months.

C/ We will be applying for other smaller and often more local grants for specific parts of the build or to enhance specific use for groups of residents such as retired residents or teenagers.

D/ We will continue to fundraise locally to raise awareness, increase village involvement and to let residents have a relationship with and a stake in the centre. We will continue to collect donations, sponsorships and to welcome and offer help with new fundraising events for the centre.

After such a long and challenging five years developing the project it is very disappointing that the last six months have seen such hugely increased costs, mainly due to the economic world climate. We are renewing our efforts to make the centre a reality. The Hardwick Community Centre Working Group (HCCWG) and the Parish Council are still committed to making this happen and we hope the village will rally round and help us with as much positive energy and enthusiasm as has been shown by those working on your behalf to try and make this a reality. This will be a major asset for the village and we mustn’t allow economic vagaries to let it slip through our fingers.

Alan West (on behalf of HCCWG)