Cabinet, on 14 June 2023 (agenda item 13 ‘East Oxford Community Centre Update’) resolved to:

3. Delegate authority to the Executive Director (Communities and People) in consultation with the Head of Financial Services/S151 Officer; the Head of Law and Governance; the Cabinet Member for Finance and Asset Management; and the Cabinet Member for Inclusive Communities to award the construction contract to Oxford Direct Services Ltd (ODSL) for the sum of £5.9m and enter into the contract.

Council, on 17 July 2023 (agenda item 22 ‘East Oxford Community Centre’) resolved to:

1.   Increase the project budget by £1.298m (from £5.496m to £6.794m).

To award a contract to ODSL for the construction of East Oxford Community Centre.

The decision to award the contract for the construction of the East Oxford Community Centre to ODSL will allow work to begin on delivering the development.  The budget and approvals for the project were initially agreed by Cabinet and Council in November 2021. Since then, there has been unprecedented inflation which is running at approximately 19% in the construction industry. As a result, in June 2023 it was agreed to increase the project budget by £1.298m to £6.794m. This has enabled the award of the construction contract to ODSL, to begin delivery of the development of the East Oxford Community Centre.  Further information is given in the report to Cabinet of 14 June 2023.

The options which were considered are set out in the report to Cabinet of 14 June 2023. Only one (option 1) was considered to be feasible: consultation with users of the centre had indicated that it offered the minimum space which they wanted, and value engineering on material and methods had allowed the effects of very high construction inflation to be mitigated.

Decision taken by Peter Matthew, Executive Director (Communities and People) in consultation with Nigel Kennedy, Head of Financial Services/S151 Officer; Rhian Davies, Interim Head of Law and Governance; Councillor Ed Turner, Cabinet Member for Finance and Asset Management; and Councillor Ajaz Rehman, Cabinet Member for Inclusive Communities.