Bristol City Council stepped in to help Lockleaze Primary School afterthe contractors, Skanska, priced the children's centre at 1.1m,almost twice the 577,000 budget. Through working with Skanska,the head teacher and governors, the council's children's centre teamarrived at a new design and re-costed the project.
Head teacher Gareth Simons said the alternative plan would still provideall the essential services, including new daycare provision forunder-threes, and in a quicker time-frame.
The centre, along with 13 other phase two centres around the city, isscheduled to open by March 2008.
Derek Pickup, the council's executive member for children and youngpeople's services, said, 'When they said that the Lockleaze children'scentre would cost over the 577,000 budget, we had to come up witha new indicative design. The centre is a new-build, so we had to do aredesign and re-costing very quickly. So we came up with a project thatwas within budget in weeks.
'Overspending is not an option because that will have a knock-on effecton the rest of the programme and would mean the loss of a children'scentre,' he added. 'It's very important to have the right contractor whoyou can work with, and you have to rigorously monitor and benchmark toget value for money.'