Work on Bradley Stoke Town Council’s troubled £105,000 scheme to “refresh” the play area at Baileys Court Activity Centre finally resumed on Monday 23rd May 2022 following a string of embarrassing setbacks that have delayed the project by around 10 months.
The council now says it expects the new-look play area to be completed and open to the public by “the end of June”, barring any further unforeseen issues.
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.
Another six months then passed, 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 and it was anticipated that the work would be completed within five weeks.
The existing play equipment at the site was quickly dismantled… but then nothing more happened.
The silence was eventually broken on 1st April when a statement appeared on the town council website explaining that when the contractor (Kompan) was on site ready to lay out the play equipment, they realised that they had “unfortunately made a surveying error”. The error related to “measurements regarding the boundary fence and trees on site,” which necessitated the drawing up of a new site plan.
The council then had to submit a new ‘non-material amendment’ (NMA) planning application to South Gloucestershire Council and this was duly approved on 28th April.
A statement issued by the town council said work at the site would resume on Monday 16th May. It added that Kompan were aiming to get the work finished and the play area handed over to the town council “as quickly as possible” and, as a gesture of goodwill, had offered to fund and organise an “opening celebration event” for councillors and the community.
In reality, it was yet another week before work resumed at the site, on Monday 23rd May, with a town council spokesperson explaining the further delay as follows:
“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.”
A council spokesperson confirmed to the Journal that the meeting with Kompan’s managing director took place on Wednesday 25th May, with the objective being “to discuss and re-establish assurance of good workmanship, with understanding of some mistakes that gave rise to council having project concerns around quality and timeliness”.
Prior to the March false start, town councillors were told that the installation work would take five weeks – consisting of a three-week installation period followed by one week for surfacing and one week for snagging. Given the actual (re)commencement date, this would suggest a possible opening date of w/c Monday 27th June 2022 – exactly 10 months later than originally planned.
In response to an enquiry from the Journal, a council spokesperson said:
“We have expectation of completion and handover by the end of June, if sooner, we will give the appropriate update.”
The council’s annual meeting in May was told that the play area would most likely have a “soft opening” with a formal opening event being held at a later date.
Related links
- First planning application P21/05354/F
- Discharge of conditions application DOC21/00358
- Second (NMA) planning application P22/02221/NMA
