Content

To award the contract to J Cheesmur & Sons
(Lewes) Ltd to construct a ladies changing room and accessible
public convenience to the bowls club pavilion in Church Green,
Tarring in the sum of £224,083.00 plus VAT.

Reasons for the decision

In order to make Tarring bowls club more
inclusive and in accordance with the Equalities Act, there is a
requirement to provide ladies changing facilities as a significant
proportion of the members are now female. In addition, to support
accessible bowls, and tennis at the neighbouring courts, there is a
requirement to provide accessible w.c
provision to supplement the male and female public conveniences
adjacent. This is also of benefit to the local community and
visitors to Church Green. LTA funding has also been secured to
support the resurfacing of the neighbouring tennis courts and due
to access constraints of the site, the extension works need to be
progressed first to enable the court surfacing works to follow on
and be delivered by the grant funding
deadline.   
 
Whilst there is allocated capital funding for
this project (£150,000.00) plus a contribution from the bowls
club of £6,500.00, this is insufficient to meet the cost of
the project when inclusive of fees. It is therefore proposed to use
£20,000.00 from WBC’s Equalities Act budget and a
further £80,000.00 from the WBC Asbestos budget to fund this
project.
 

Alternative options considered

Re-tender for a third time to reduce
cost but risk project slippage and thus potentially losing the LTA
funding. 
Defer the works until further
funding can be secured to avoid using other budgets. However once
the tennis court resurfacing has been completed, it would be more
difficult and expensive to undertake the extension works due to
site constraints.