Issue details

In November 2021, Cabinet agreed the Unsupervised Play Investment Programme for the years 2021/22 – 2022/23 as set out in report HCS/33. Through this report Cabinet agreed to delegate authority to the Cabinet Member for Wellbeing in consultation with the Head of Community Services, to conduct review stage/s and agree where necessary to reprioritise the order of delivery for the relevant phase of the investment programme.

Despite best efforts only 2 from 10 approved schemes have been awarded to date. This reflects challenges presented by the pandemic, and the implications within the market around supply restrictions (both materials and suppliers) plus the impact of cost inflation. Increasingly the tendering of single, often quite small, play schemes is proving to be unattractive to the market and therefore not attracting good value.

Consequently, consideration has been given to how to procure, manage and deliver the consultation and construction stages within the available resources and process timescales. It is proposed to group the remaining approved schemes together within one tender, and to increase the approved budget by £18,958 to cover inflation increases for all sites to be tendered. Funds to be fully met from available S106 monies which has been approved through the appropriate delegations.