Decision details

This Decision Notice follows on from previous approvals granted on the project at the March 2024 Cabinet meeting and the February 2025 Transport and Connectivity Committee. Given the financial ask of this notice, it is being presented to the Executive Director of Growth and Regeneration for approval in consultation with Finance and the Chair of the Transport and Connectivity Committee.
The £490,095 will be used to replenish the construction contingency budget following the realisation of the risk that additional Strategic Partner fees for the completion of the detailed design were required, specifically design tasks that were not planned for upon the commencement of the detailed design stage and support from the Arcadis Commercial Team for the preparation of tender documents and assistance in the tender evaluation. These additional tasks were initially paid for using contingency previously allocated for the construction stage.

That the Executive Director of Growth and Regeneration, in consultation with the S151 Officer and Committee Chair for Transport and Connectivity, authorises the acceptance of additional City Regional Sustainable Transport Settlement to replenish the contingency budget for the project, after construction contingency was used to cover additional Strategic Partner detailed design activities aforementioned, up to the value of £490,095.

Option 1 - ‘Do nothing’: Through this option no additional funding would be made available for the additional activities set out in this Officer Decision Notice. In adopting this option, the risk of taking CRSTS funding from other activities would be removed, but the ability of the project to complete the development stage outputs, including detailed design and tender documents to the expected quality and requirements to run a successful tender period would be significantly impacted. It is therefore recommended that this option is not taken forward.
Option 2 - ‘Draw down and defer’: This option would involve the project drawing down the funding required from the risk pot allocated to the delivery stage, following the approval of the FBC at CEOs, and defer the decision of replenishing the risk pot to the construction stage. This option would remove the need to request for further additional CRSTS funding now but attracts the risk that the need to request further CRSTS funding in the delivery stage to replenish the risk pot, which becomes an issue if there is no funding remaining to replenish the risk pot at that time. It is therefore recommended that this option is not carried forward.
Option 3 -‘Defer decision entirely’: Final option would be to defer the decision to on these changes. There are no benefits to this option. The main disadvantage of this option would be to the schedule, to increase the amount of time to make this decision would likely result in further programme delays. For this reason, it is recommended that this option is not carried forward.