Elmstead New Community Centre

1. Description: Following an extensive process over more than a decade, Elmstead Parish Council is now in a position to seek a construction contract with a reputable and experienced firm to build a new community centre. Setting: Elmstead is a rural village a few miles east of Colchester, Essex, in the district of Tendring. With the village having doubled in size over the last decade, the current community centre has served the parish well, with the main building being over a century old, but limitations caused by increasing maintenance and a constrained site with minimal parking means a new, modern community centre is very much needed. Conveniently an agreement was reached with a housing developer to secure more than sufficient property just across the road from the old community centre to build a new facility with surrounding land that can be utilized for other community uses. Intro: Despite delays during the pandemic causing an initial planning application to expire, the Parish Council is now in a position where it owns the site with direct highway access being in a position to begin immediately once a contract is agreed. The Parish Council is in an excellent position to minimize risk and ensure minimal problems during the construction process and would welcome a construction partner to take full advantage of this exciting opportunity for the community. Planning Permission: Alongside our architect the Parish Council has obtained planning permission from Tendring District Council for a single-story building with around 700 sqm floor space, adjacent 54 space car park and surrounding landscaping. [24/01281/FUL] The building will be a single storey brick and block construction with prefabricated timber roof trusses supporting an artificial slate roof. Comprehensive plans are included in the attached design documents. With our architect acting as lead designer alongside a team of structural and mechanical engineers the building regulation application has been submitted, we are in an advanced stage of design while we hope to have left sufficient flexibility to best work with the successful tenderer to create the best community centre possible. While we have completed much of RIBA stage 4, we have waited to finalise some elements of the technical design to work with our chosen builder on the best solutions, with the construction contract to focus on RIBA stages 5 - 6. To ensure we meet the requirements of public works contracts for a council of our size, we have employed a quantity surveyor to produce bills of quantities which the tender applicants are to use to form a detailed costing breakdown. As a Parish Council we are obligated to minimize risk when making decisions so examples of previous experience constructing comparable public buildings such as other community centres, council buildings, healthcare facilities, schools and libraries is required. To ensure the best use of public money spent on the project we expect to work with our architect, quantity surveyor and builder to best value engineer the project in the lead up to construction. The new community centre project has adopted an ethos of accessibility, functionality, future proofing and best serving the diverse needs of the local community, and we would encourage tender applicants to consider the same principles in their submission. With a degree of flexibility in additional sources of funding we estimate the construction cost to be around £1,600,000 but are optimistic the final cost could be under this budget to allow additional spending on the outdoor facilities around the new community centre. With the tender duration ending in late November, we hope to have decided a successful tender applicant by Christmas and finalise contracts at the start of the new year with the intention to start building in spring with a construction timeframe of around a year. Enquiries concerning the tender: Due to tender regulations, all communication regarding the tender must be …