Bradley Stoke Town Council’s troubled £105,000 project to “refresh” the play area at Baileys Court Activity Centre has suffered another embarrassing setback.
Redevelopment of the play area, which occupies a tiny 0.095 hectare site, was originally planned to take place during the 2021 school summer holidays, to avoid any disruption with respect to “traffic, parking and parents dropping off children [at the nearby Baileys Court Primary School]”.
However, a combination of over-optimistic project planning and a failure to recognise that the height of one of the proposed pieces of new play equipment meant that planning permission would be required for the whole scheme led to that timescale being abandoned at short notice.
Planning permission was eventually obtained on 16th September 2021, three weeks after the work was originally planned to have been completed. However, a further step, to obtain the ‘discharge’ of a condition on the planning consent that required the submission of a ‘tree protection plan and arboricultural method statement’, took a further two months to complete, with a decision being issued on 16th November 2021.
Ground breaking
Another four months then passed, without any word of explanation, until 15th March 2022, when a brief news item appeared on the town council website announcing that a ‘ground-breaking’ ceremony had taken place at the play area the previous day. The piece included a photo showing mayor Tom Aditya holding a spade, accompanied by smiling council members and staff, and it was stated that the work would take an estimated five weeks to complete.
A day later, a meeting of Full Council on 16th March 2022 was told that the “five weeks” would consist of a three-week installation period followed by one week for surfacing and one week for snagging.
The existing play equipment at the site was quickly dismantled… but then nothing more happened.
By the end of the second week of the supposed three-week installation period, awkward questions started to be asked on local social media. One member of the public reported being told that it been found that the new play equipment “didn’t fit” the available space. But there was still no official explanation from the town council in relation to the lack of activity at the site.
The silence was eventually broken on 31st March 2022, albeit unofficially, when Cllr Tony Griffiths commented on a post in a local Facebook group to say that the contractor “had not surveyed the site accurately”, adding that the design would have to be “amended slightly due to some trees not being shown in their original plans”.
The news was confirmed to the Journal on 1st April by the deputy town clerk, who said the contractor had discovered the problem with the trees on 25th March, as they were surveying the site prior to starting installation of the new equipment.
In response to a further query from the Journal asking if the selected contractor had visited the site prior to submitting their bid in May 2021, town clerk Sharon Petela confirmed that they had.
Surveying error
A statement placed on the town council website later on 1st April reads:
“Our contractor has advised us that when they were on site ready to lay out the new play area, they realised that they had unfortunately made a surveying error (which they are now investigating within their team) linked to a group of trees in the far corner of the play area and the trees did not tally up with the location on the contractor’s plans which had been submitted by them as part of the planning application last autumn, so the contractor has had to update the layout to ensure that all the equipment fits in the space and none of the trees will be in the free/falling space of the equipment. This means that there will be some additional rubber safety surfacing installed, but there will be no increase in cost to the town council, the contractor will cover the cost. All the equipment which was detailed in the planning permission will still be present but in slightly different location.”
“The town council have now taken advice from South Gloucestershire Council planning department who have advised us that we can submit a non-material amendment to the planning permission which was granted last year. We are working with the play area contractor and also the arboricultural company who submitted the arboricultural statement (dated 12th October 2021) which was necessary to comply with the discharge of condition 3 (tree protection plan and arboricultural method statement) attached to planning permission P21/05354/F. Once the arboricultural report has been amended this will be submitted to South Gloucestershire Council along with the revised layout plans and the non-material amendment planning application.”
Planning legislation requires a local authority to determine non-material planning application within 28 days. How quickly South Gloucestershire Council will be able to process the town council’s application, once received, remains to be seen as a statement on their website suggests that their planning department is very busy at present:
“From Monday 4th April to Friday 8th April 2022 we are unable to respond to requests for updates on applications or general queries. This is because we are having a focused clearance week to ease the congestion of applications due to very high demand. You can contact us again from 11th April 2022.”
The town council’s statement concludes:
“As soon as the town council have further updates we will let the community know. We are also expecting an explanatory statement from our contractor, Kompan, and we will post this on our website when we receive it.”
Failings and concerns
Journal editor Stephen Horton writes: This troubled project has seen failings on all sides – by council staff, council members and the selected contractor.
Project failings and concerns include:
1. Why did the contractor, one of the most experienced play equipment firms in the country, not make the town council aware at the bid stage that planning permission would be required, given that the height of its proposed ‘high slide’ at 4.5m exceeds the threshold of 4.0m set in national legislation for outbuildings and similar structures that can be erected without such permission?
2. How did the tender assessment committee, which included three former chairs of the town council’s Planning Committee, one a serving member of South Gloucestershire Council’s Development Management Committee, fail to recognise that the selected design with its feature 4.5m tall ‘high slide’ would require planning permission?
3. Why did council officers recommend acceptance of the Kompan bid on 26th May 2021, knowing that the company had specified an 8-week lead time, giving the council just three days to finalise the contract, sign a purchase order and make payment, so that the project could be completed during the school holidays? In fact, the council’s press spokesperson has since admitted that this would have been impossible to achieve as a council meeting is required to approve any payment and none were scheduled until June, which was too late.
4. Having realised, by the time the next Full Council meeting took place on 23rd June 2021, that a planning application would need to be made, why did councillors not challenge the deputy town clerk’s hopelessly over-optimistic suggestion that a planning application could be put together, validated by South Gloucestershire Council, put out to consultation for 21 days, have a case officer come to a decision and write a report, all in time to allow the work to be completed during the school holidays?
4a. At this stage, why didn’t the town council consider reopening the tender process to allow bids from firms who hadn’t previously tendered because they couldn’t commit to meeting the very demanding timeline specified in the ‘invitation to tender’ document?
5. With the planning application still not submitted by 25th July 2021, when work was due to start, why did it take until 4th August 2021 for the town council to announce, through a ‘press release’ that wasn’t actually sent to the press, that the work had been delayed and could now no longer be completed during the school summer holidays?
6. Given the fact that the contractor made a site inspection before submitting their bid, the prior availability of an arboricultural report from December 2018, the fact that a further arboricultural report was produced for the discharge of a planning condition in October 2021 and the additional time that became available for inspection and planning activities following postponement of the start of work on site, how is it possible for the contractor to only now discover that the new play equipment will not fit the available space?
7. Why are the town council’s press and public relations so poor that we had to learn about the latest delay through a comment posted by a council member on a post in a private Facebook group?
More information and related links
- Planning application P21/05354/F
- Discharge of conditions application DOC21/00358
From the archives
The latest delays might perhaps seem slightly less significant when one considers that the town council has been looking at redeveloping the Baileys Court play area for at least nine years!
The above photo is from a Journal article published in May 2013.
Read the article here: BSCS students show commitment to improving Baileys Court play area
Contractor’s statement
UPDATE added 12th April 2022.
The following update has now appeared on the Bradley Stoke Town Council website…
We have now received the following explanatory statement from our contractor Kompan:
“The original site survey had an error in a measurement regarding the boundary fence and trees on site. This was discovered during the setting/marking out of the play area. Having realised this, a new site plan has been drawn up with the updated measurements. This new layout plan contains all the original play equipment proposed, nothing has been removed. When South Gloucestershire Council planning approves the new layout as acceptable, we can recommence works on site as soon as possible and have the new play area open to the public.”
At the time of writing, the South Gloucestershire Council planning portal shows no record of a further planning application being made for this site.
NMA planning application submitted
UPDATE added 21st April 2022.
A non-material amendment (NMA) planning application was submitted by Bradley Stoke Town Council on Wednesday 13th April 2022.
P22/02221/NMA: Non material amendment to permission P21/05354/F to alter the location of the tower within the play park.
The determination deadline is Thursday 12th May 2022.
NMA planning application approved
UPDATE added 4th May 2022.
The non-material amendment (NMA) planning application submitted by Bradley Stoke Town Council was approved under delegated powers on Thursday 28th April 2022.
The case officer’s assessment states:
The proposed changes to the approved scheme are limited to altering the layout of the play park equipment including the location of the tower. It is not considered that the changes would impact upon any of the considerations of the original application, or affect amenity or design considerations to a material degree. The proposals given their nature, scale and context within the wider scheme would not materially impact upon the perception of the overall site.
It is not therefore considered that the proposals would have a material increase in amenity or design impact or significance upon the nature of the previous consent and therefore the non-material changes proposed would not result in an amendment, which would require further or separate planning permission in its own right.
The town council has been asked about new dates for the resumption of work and completion of the project, but no reply had been received at the time of writing this update.
Council statement
UPDATE added 6th May 2022.
The following update was provided by Bradley Stoke Town Council on 5th May 2022:
Now that the non-material amendment has been agreed by South Gloucestershire Council planning department , work will be restarting, week commencing Monday 16th May 2022. Kompan are aiming to get the work finished and the play area handed over to the town council as quickly as possible as they fully appreciate everyone’s disappointment as to what has happened and have once again apologised for their surveying error which caused the delay. As a gesture of goodwill, they will be installing the new bench and litter bin in the play area which the town council have already purchased and were going to install ourselves (at an additional cost) once the play area is completed. Kompan have also offered to help organise/provide an opening celebration event on site for council and the community and will be supplying refreshments, goodies bags for the children etc. There will be no additional costs to the town council for either the bench/bin installation or the opening celebration event.
With regard to a potential opening date, a council source said:
“We will keep everyone informed as to the final handover date as work progresses and will also let everyone know the formal opening date and subsequent opening celebration event as these are arranged.”
Another week’s delay
UPDATE added 20th May 2022.
With no sign of work actually resuming this week (w/c Monday 16th May), as previously advised, the Journal contacted the town council to request an update. A spokesperson said:
“Kompan [the contractors] have confirmed today that they will be restarting work on Monday 23rd May 2022 and have apologised for the additional week’s delay. Within the next week, the town council will be meeting with the managing director of the company to review this project.”
