£12m school rebuild costs to come from council coffers

1:50pm Monday 8th September 2008

By Chris Wickham

Borough chiefs are set to agree the full rebuild of a secondary school costing almost £37m this week, of which nearly £12m will come from council coffers.

On Wednesday, September 10, Richmond Council’s cabinet is expected to give the redevelopment of Teddington School the go-ahead despite a cost rise of around £4m in the last two months and the possibility the price will continue to go up.

In July the borough executive was told the full re-build of the Broom Road school would cost £32.6m, with £24.9m being provided by the Government under the Building Schools for the Future initiative, but developer Mace Plus has handed in a bill which will leave the final total at £36.75m.

Opposition councillors have described it as a “financial shambles” and the “biggest overrun in council history” but Councillor Stephen Knight, Richmond Council deputy leader and cabinet member for resources, said the authority believed it was worth investing the money.

In a report published at the end of last week Coun Knight and Coun Malcolm Eady, cabinet member for education and children’s services, told their colleagues £36.75m “cannot be the guaranteed out-turn price for the project” but it did represent value for money.

They also told the executive if the price was not agreed the only alternatives were to abort the scheme or look for a new contractor.

Coun Knight said officers had worked hard to keep costs down and there was frustration at the extent of the price rise but this project was part of a commitment to invest in secondary schools.

"This is a large and complicated project that was always going to be difficult, but we have a commitment to deliver this scheme for the benefit of the borough's young people and that continues to be our priority,” he said.

Coun Nick True, leader of Richmond Conservatives, said: “Once again the Lib Dems are squandering public money, squandering the reserves they inherited and proving to be stupendously incompetent guardians of the public purse.”

Coun Knight added: "The Conservative opposition may attack us for pressing on with this project, and said at the outset that they wouldn't have invested any council money in the scheme, but the Liberal Democrats believe that it is worth investing in the education of our young people and the £25m Government grant offers a once in a generation opportunity for a brand new school."