Total cost of Welshpool’s Salop Road school nears £12million
The project to build both new schools in the town ran into numerous problems, forcing the council to split the budgets instead of continuing as one project, which was originally costed at £16,794,385 in June 2018.
That was when the project split into two, with setbacks since the original business case was approved in 2017 including the Cadw listing of Ysgol Maesydre (which became the new Ysgol Gymraeg Y Trallwng), the collapse of the main contractors with the school partially built, the impact of Covid-19 and inflationary costs.
The revised budget for the Welshpool Church in Wales Primary School at March 2022 on its own was £11,581,896.
While the number crunchers still tot up the total cost of the Welsh speaking school at Maesydre, which opened this month, extra work at the Welshpool Church in Wales School, including external access and highways works last summer, has resulted in the £150,000 overspend.
On Tuesday, the cabinet will be asked to approve additional funding now that the accounts have been finalised.
Cllr Pete Roberts, Cabinet Member for a Learning Powys, said: “Welshpool Church in Wales Primary School is a fantastic facility that has significantly improved the learning environment for local pupils.
“However, the collapse of our construction partner forced the previous Cabinet into a change of direction with cost increases at several points in its development. This paper identifies the last of those expenses in a final report.
“There is much to be learnt from the management of this project and I will be recommending to Cabinet that the full review of costs and lessons learnt that I previously called for as a scrutiny chair will now be undertaken. This will include both Welshpool school projects with the findings being shared with the Governance and Audit Committee’s Capital Working Group.”
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