The decision enables work to progress on the design, programme and cost for the delivery of the Oxpens River Bridge. The PCSA covers work necessary in advance of entering into a delivery contract.

The Executive Director for Development subsequently made a decision to enter into a PCSA with Balfour Beatty under the terms of the SCAPE Framework to undertake works necessary to enable a value engineering (VE) exercise to be undertaken to bring the cost estimate to within the current budget (provided from Growth Deal funding) and to develop a construction programme that complies with the Growth deal requirements. The PCSA had a break clause so that if the VE target was not achieved the PCSA would be terminated.

In March 2024 the scope of the PCSA was varied and the value increased to support the progression of the planning application and certain structural design elements were brought forward to satisfy ongoing technical review.

As a result a decision was made at that time by the Executive Director of Development to increase the existing PCSA value of £1,193,858 to £1,428,787.07 (an increase of £234,929.07) and that extended the PCSA completion date extended to 20^th June 2024.

Following a delay in the submission of the planning application from 20^th February to 19^th March 2024, the decision to approve the application was called in for review by a Special Planning Review Committee on 18^th April.

Further, a number of additional changes to enable progression of the design have come forward that require new variation items to be agreed and in some cases incur costs in the sum of £184,498 (including a 5% contingency) to be drawn from the existing scheme budget.

These items include:

-       Production of information and submissions to support progression of approvals to statutory approvers (e.g. FRAP, TTRO, s106(3) s38 etc…)

-       Action to progress production of information to satisfy planning conditions

-       Design changes to the bridge and footpath elements

As noted above a number of factors such as action to progress elements of the approval of planning conditions were not included within the original PCSA and as such it is also proposed that the completion date of the agreement is further extended to 30^th August 2024.

The Executive Director for Development is satisfied that the increase in the value of the PCSA of £184,498 reflects the variations that are required and has decided to approve the additional spend on the PCSA and the extension of the completion date of the agreement to allow the works to continue.

It is further noted that the full impact of the delay to planning approval on programme and resource is not yet established and will be subject to further negotiation with the Balfour Beatty delivery team.

It is necessary to make these changes to the PCSA now to maintain programme and to allow conclusion of the PCSA agreement by 30^th August 2024.

It is anticipated that the inclusion of the additional work on planning conditions and other external approvals within the PCSA rather than main contract will save  time later on in the programme.

Other options considered were;

·       To attempt to shorten other items of the programme, however, all options were interrogated, and this was the optimum option to keep to programme and budget.

·       Not to proceed with the project. This was rejected as it would not have supported the Council’s aim of supporting active travel by providing a pedestrian and cycle bridge over the river facilitating movement between Osney Mead and the city centre as well as wider north south links to the city centre and rail station.