New documents show 333% increase in costs

A new report to Bath and North East Somerset Council has revealed that costs for the Englishcombe Lane Supported Housing scheme have rocketed from an initial estimate of £6M to a staggering £20M. 

The information was buried in the latest provisionally approved capital expenditure budget for the next 5 years, to be presented to Cabinet on 13th Feb 2025. (Annex 4 p106 of the Cabinet documentation pack)

For clarity, the relevant highlighted figures are:

The expenditure shown is solely Capital, adding £20M to council taxpayers’ debt burden. Revenue costings ( ie day to day running and maintenance costs) are in addition to this.

Implicit in the phasing of the figures is the acceptance of a long implementation phase, with occupation delayed until 2030, but this information is not available, since public scrutiny of this expenditure is not mandatory. This will come as a blow to potential occupants hoping to end the out-of-area provision they now have.

Since there is no detail of how the money is to be spent, and the uncertainty of construction costs dues to the very poor ground conditions, it is difficult to formulate an assessment of the likely actual expenditure. But BATHNES council has a very poor record when it comes to control of large capital expenditure, so there is every reason to expect this amount will similarly be significantly below the actual final cost.

Overall, at £1.2M per resident, serious questions have to be asked about both the value for money and the timely delivery of this scheme.

Campaigners for the Tufa Field remain convinced that the best value for money of this SNCI site is as a Biodiversity Net Gain credit site, which will be critically needed to offset Biodiversity loss elsewhere in the Authority area as house building targets are ramped up.

Englishcombe Lane Supported Housing scheme