Archived decisions

Hampshire County Council Executive Member for Education 2 April 2007 Dowd's Farm Primary School, Hedge End Report by the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services

Contact: Steve Clow Ext: 7858 e-mail: [email protected]

1	Summary
1.1	On 24 March 2005 the Executive Member for Education approved in principle the provision of a new 210-place, one-form entry primary school to serve new homes which are currently being developed at Dowd's Farm, Hedge End.
1.2	The site identified for the proposed primary school is located to the north of Hedge End village and is located within the new residential area of Dowd's Farm and will be accessed from Wellstead Road.
1.3	The proposed scheme will provide a new Primary School which will maximise wellbeing and enhance the quality of place for all users of the facilities.
1.4	The Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services has progressed the design of the proposed additional accommodation and the purpose of this report is to outline the design proposals and seek approval to the attached design project appraisal.
2	Recommendations
2.1	That the Executive Member for Education advises the Executive Member for Policy and Resources that the design project appraisal for the scheme to provide a one-form entry primary school at Dowd's Farm, Hedge End, at a total estimated cost of £4,367,000, excluding fees, is approved.
2.2	That the Executive Member for Education approves advance enabling works for the main scheme at Dowd's Farm, Hedge End, at a total estimated cost of £200,000, excluding fees.
3	Scope of the Works
3.1	The proposed new Primary School will accommodate 210 pupils (4-11 years) in seven classrooms. Other accommodation will include a main hall, library, ICT room, music/drama room, food tech room, craft room, staff and administration offices, toilets (to include accessible and hygiene room) and other associated storage facilities. The total estimated cost of the scheme is £4,367,000, excluding fees.
3.2	The design of the proposed school is linear in form, with two primary pitched roof buildings and two lower sections to be built on a northwest-southeast axis. The staff car park will be located to the northwest of the site, linked directly to Wellstead Road with a main vehicular gated access. Pedestrian access will also be from Wellstead Road. The formal play area and sports pitch are located to the southeast and northeast of the site respectively. Two further locations have been identified for pedestrian accesses to the site to the southeast and eastern boundaries. Final locations are to be confirmed in due course when the plans for the remaining housing development are forthcoming.
3.3	The proposed building is fully accessible, allowing inclusion for all staff and pupils. Two accessible toilets and a hygiene room will also be provided as part of the scheme.
3.4	Landscaping works include a grass playing field, hard surfaced play court, informal hard play areas which will be accessed directly from the classrooms, library and circulation areas. The western boundary of the site will have supplementary planting along the boundary to the north of the vehicular access. Around the building and edges of the external play areas, low-level planting will be used to provide a visual interest and potential learning resource for pupils.
4	Funding and Timing
4.1	An allocation of £4,367,000, excluding fees, has been made in the Children's Services Capital Programme 2007/08. An additional sum has been allocated for furniture and equipment.
4.2	The report to the Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel on 13 October 2005 approved engaging with HBG Construction through the framework for major projects, and they have been appointed to assist with the design development of the scheme for the pre-contract stage of the project.
4.3	In order to meet the required completion date for the opening of the new school, advance enabling works are required comprising: tree felling, dewatering, filling to raise the levels of the site, and the laying of a piling mat for further access by heavy plant, at an estimated cost of £200,000, excluding fees. This sum is included within the main contract sum. The work will be carried out in advance of the main building contract in the months preceding May 2007 to enable a prompt start to the main building contract works. Approval to the advance works is being sought at the meeting of the Executive Member for Education, to be held on 22 March 2007.
4.4	Subject to the necessary approvals and developer's site preparation works, it is anticipated that the main scheme works will commence on site during May 2007 and complete during March 2008.
5	Consultation with Local Member
5.1	Councillor Carol Boulton, the local Member for this area, has been consulted on this design project appraisal and she is supportive of the scheme.

Conclusion

The proposed scheme will provide a new 210-place, one-form entry primary school to serve new homes which are currently being developed at Dowd's Farm, Hedge End.

LINK(S) TO CORPORATE STRATEGY
	Yes	No
Hampshire safer and more secure for all		_
Maximising well-being	_
Enhancing our quality of place	_

This proposal does not link to the Corporate Strategy but, nevertheless, requires a decision because:

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1 Published works

2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

Title Location

Architect's plans PMIS file

Building Profile Reports TMH

Hampshire County Council

Building Design Project Appraisal

Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel

20 March 2007

Executive Member for Education

2 April 2007

Executive Member for Policy and Resources

5 April 2007

Project:	Dowd's Farm Primary School, Hedge End
	New one-form entry Primary School
Commencement date:	May 2007
Completion date:	March 2008
Planned year of start in accordance with Capital Programme:		2007/08

Recommendation:

That the building design project appraisal for the Dowd's Farm Primary School scheme be approved.

1 Finance

Capital Expenditure	Current Estimate £'000	Capital Programme £'000
Buildings	4,367	4,367
Fees	721	721
Land to be purchased	_	_
Total	5,088	5,088

Financial Provision for Total Scheme	Buildings £'000	Fees £'000	Total cost £'000
1 From own Resources:
a) Capital Programme (as above)	4,367	721	5,088
Total	4,367	721	5,088

Building Cost - Net Cost = £2,149 per m² excluding abnormals

- Gross Cost = £3,173 per m²

Devolved Capital allocations N/A

Landlord funded work connected with this scheme

There are no landlord funded works associated with this scheme.

Value of land already acquired for this project

The land required for this school is to be transferred by the current owners as the result of a Section 106 planning obligation related to the development of the adjoining area at Dowd's Farm.

Revenue implications

	(a) Employees £'000	(b) Other £'000	(a+b) Net Current Expenditure £'000	(c) Capital Charges £'000	(a+b+c) Total Net Expenditure £'000
Revenue Implications Additional+ /Reductions	45	25	70	-	70
Unit cost (£) (e.g. per place)	-	-	-	-	-
% variation to Committee's budget	-				-
Number of additional Staff (fte)	1				-

* The overall level of the revenue budget for funding schools will (from April 2006) be prescribed by central government, and capital projects have no bearing on the level of this budget. Therefore, this proposed project will have no bearing on the overall level of the Children's Services budget, extra costs and savings being met from the same overall schools' funding level.

Energy costs

The estimated annual energy consumption for the new accommodation will meet that required by current Building Regulations. It is anticipated that the fuel cost for the school will be in the order of £5.65 for each m² of accommodation and 44 tonnes of CO^2. per year.

Value for Money

Factors taken into consideration during the development process to ensure that the project is delivering value for money:

· Procurement - the project is being developed as part of an innovative procurement strategy to deliver a number of new primary schools. Dowd's Farm is one of three schools being developed together with two framework contractors, with the aim of achieving some commonality and repetition across the projects to facilitate economies of scale through aggregation both on building costs and the cost of resources. Performance indicators from similar packaging strategies, such as the provision of nursing care beds (Enhance) are demonstrating that such an approach is delivering significant efficiencies.

· Buildability/Specification - the early involvement of the contractor in the design development process has enabled them to contribute valuable experience, knowledge and expertise into achieving optimum design solutions in terms of buildability, quality and costs over the life of the building.

· Whole Life Costs - the development of the project has included an analysis of costs over the whole life-cycle of the building. A Whole Life Cost plan has been prepared for the project and benchmarked against similar projects carried out by the County Council. The WLC summary for this project compares favourably with Pinewood and Elvetham Heath, which are the last new infant/primary schools built by the County and therefore the most appropriate benchmark.

2 Details of site and existing infrastructure

Location/adjoining land and buildings

The proposed new primary school will be located within the residential area of Dowd's Farm, which is currently being developed, to the north of and running parallel to the existing Dowd's Farm House and in between two mature belts of trees, which are to be retained. To the north there is the adjoining urban park/open space.

Area including comparison with local/national standards

The total site area is 3.212 acres (1.3 hectares). The DfES guideline for a school of this size is 2.965 acres (1.2 hectares).

Access

There will be separate pedestrian and vehicular accesses to the site. One dedicated pedestrian access will be formed from Wellstead Way into the school site directly opposite the main visitor access to the building along the northwestern boundary and a further pedestrian access will be formed on the eastern boundary, subject to future development.

A dedicated vehicular access will be from the northwestern boundary, off Wellstead Way.

The contractor will access the site via an adjoining residential development which is currently under construction.

Existing buildings and temporary buildings

There are no buildings on the proposed site.

Results of trial boreholes

The geotechnical report shows the subsoil conditions are approximately 0.7m of made ground, on clay to about 1.6m, on sand to about 7m overlying clay. The report recommends that due to the presence of trees on site and their effect on clay, any new construction should be founded on piles. The building will be of steel frame construction with metal studwork infill walls, with suspended ground floor slab.

Mains services position

The developer of the adjacent residential development site will be extending the mains services to the school boundary.

3 Scope of the Project

Type of project, layout and facilities provided

The scheme will provide a one-entry primary school with the following accommodation:

· seven classrooms

· main hall

· library

· ICT room

· music/drama room

· food tech room

· craft room

· staff and administration office

· pupil toilets

· accessible toilet for staff and pupils to include hygiene room

· associated plant/storage/caretaking areas

Places provided

The scheme will provide 210 pupil places.

4 The Proposed Building

Type of construction, finish and appearance

The proposed building will be of hot rolled steel framed with cold rolled steel infill panel construction with brick faced cladding and natural slate to all pitched roofs. Other roofs will have a high-performance covering. Windows and doors will be of polyester powder-coated aluminium/ timber composite framed glazing.

Impact Assessment

This scheme has been designed with level access throughout.

An accessible toilet and hygiene room are provided and a dedicated accessible car parking space.

Assessment of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act has been considered in the development of this proposal. No adverse impact has been identified in terms of race, creed or gender.

Heating and ventilation systems

The heating system will be powered by either a ground source heat pump or a biomass boiler backed up by a conventional gas-fired boiler.

The building will have an underfloor heating system throughout. Natural ventilation will be provided throughout the building, with mechanical extract as appropriate.

Fire risk assessment

In consultation with the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, a fire risk assessment concludes that this is a low fire risk category building. Therefore a sprinkler system will not be installed.

Health and safety

A designer's risk assessment and a design health and safety plan, in accordance with Regulation 15 of the Construction Design and Management Regulations 1994, have been undertaken for the proposed scheme

5 External Works

Car parking

Eleven staff car parking spaces are to be provided, one of which will be an accessible space. Provision has been made for delivery and waste disposal vehicles and a turning area is provided to enable these vehicles to leave the site in a forward gear.

Landscape proposals

The landscape proposals have been developed around the boundary conditions, views and placement of the school building and playing field. The western boundary of the site will have supplementary planting along the boundary to the north of the vehicular access to replace hedgerow that is to be removed along the lower section of this boundary. Around the building and the edges of the external play areas, low-level planting will be used to soften the design, provide visual interest and a potential learning resource for pupils.

Situation on site and environmental impact

The existing mature trees to the eastern, southern and western boundary will not be affected by the proposed scheme and will be protected in line with current regulations. Some smaller specimens of trees and an existing hedgerow in the location of the footprint of the proposed building and to the frontage of the building to Wellstead Way are to be removed. Replacement tree and shrub planting to the northwestern boundary to the north of the proposed staff car park and existing mature oak will also mitigate the loss of hedgerow.

6 Planning

A detailed planning application was submitted during January 2007.

7 Building management

The usual arrangements will apply to cleaning, catering, local management and maintenance arrangements for the new school building and site.

8 Furniture and equipment

An assessment of need will be undertaken and appropriate funding sources identified.

9 Professional resources

Architectural Services } Property, Business and Regulatory

Quantity Surveying } Faithfull & Gould

Electrical and Mechanical Engineering } RHB

Structural Engineering } Price & Myers

10 Consultations

The following have been consulted during the development of the project: Temporary Governing Body, Environment Department, Fire Officer, Access Officer, local County Councillor.