Minutes:
What are the implications for the Council since Dawnus went into administration, including but not
limited to costs, time scales, quality of work and
warranties.
Answer
Most of this was covered in a briefing meeting that we had with your Leader and also Imogen attended, earlier this week. However, I will go into the answer as fully as I can at this time.
First of all, we should recognise the very good work over the years that Dawnus have carried out for WBC – the most recent being the excellent delivery of the Bohunt School in Arborfield. They had a local Office in Thatcham and employed staff and tradespeople from within our Borough, who have now been made redundant. They also worked with many small and medium enterprises, several of whom operated from within and around our Borough.
It is also to be recognised that the construction industry generally has suffered from a lack of availability of credit and finance following the demise of Carillion last year, which has and continues to constrain the cashflow and liquidity of many companies both large and small across the country.
Since being advised of Dawnus entering Administration, this Council acted very swiftly by instigating our Contingency Plan for this very event. Indeed, within 2 hours the Dawnus contract had been terminated, which then allowed us to take back control of the site and ensure it was secured that very night. This put us on the front foot and allowed us to continue with the works. Indeed by the following morning another Contractor had been employed on the site and this allowed works to continue on that morning on the Friday of last, including the tenant fit-outs and the gas main installation in Rose Street.
We have identified the works required to open the most immediate retail units and those works continue and will allow three of them to open generally in line with last week’s plans – the first indeed being Beyond The Download in Rose Street this coming weekend.
We are in discussion with all tenants and specifically those in the next tranche who are planning to open in April. It is the case that maybe two of them may be delayed but we are currently working through the outstanding works necessary to see them open successfully. We will understand more in terms of impact on programme in the coming weeks.
We also continue discussion with several operators who are ready to sign, again understanding the specific works required for each to enable us to provide access, and then them being able to trade successfully.
It is inevitable that the cost of the scheme will increase, though it must be recognised that some of this may be able to be set-off against Dawnus (there will be discussions with the Administrator in this respect). We hold contingencies for the project specifically and for the wider programme of works which we believe at this stage will be adequate to cover the increased cost. Therefore, at this time, we do not foresee that an increase in the budget will be required to complete the works.
It is certainly our intent to maintain all warranties where we can. We have already discussed this issue with the design consultants in an effort to secure these warranties. There were also warranties in place with key sub-contractors and we are in discussion with them to understand if we can secure warranties from them for their design and installation of the works.
Supplementary Question:
What about the two non Peach Place contracts that Dawnus had; that is Matthewsgreen and Arborfield Green Primary School? Can you tell us what is going to happen about those?
Supplementary Answer (which was answered by the Leader of the Council):
As with the previous statement they are currently under review. Dawnus has gone into administration so clearly they will not be proceeding with those so we need to adopt the same processes that we have done on Peach Place for those contracts; review them and if necessary, retender.