| The heating system was on the edge of being “dangerous”. A Small Grant was obtained from SRB4 to pay for a building based feasibility study. The original 'brief' was to refurbish the existing building adding more rooms and rebuilding the toilets and kitchen. After discussing the report of the survey and its recommendations it became clear that that only viable option was the replacement of the entire building. Another small grant was obtained, this time from SRB6, to carry out a community survey in order to identify unmet need in the area and to inform the design of the new building which would become the 'Victoria Road Multi Use Centre'. These first steps took about 12 months. Fundraising then began. Members of the church congregation gave money to the project - one person donated their house to the project for sale. Members of the local community also gave generously to the appeal (neighbours from several faiths). Applications were written to Grant Making Trusts and a successful application was made to SRB6 Community Infrastructure for £171,000. Over the course of the feasibility study, community survey, the planning and the fund raising the total cost of the project rose from £171,000 to £371,000 when the full detailed designs were in place. Because the Church and it's management committee had no experience of developing a capital project a professional team was recruited namely Frank Brophy and Nadim Riaz, Architects, Bob Hyde of Bridgewater Coulton a Quantity Surveyor and David Symonds a Structural Engineer. This team designed the project and 'put it out to tender'. Six building contractors responded to this public tendering process and a local builder, already on the City Council Approved Contractors List namely Stubbs Brothers Builders (Handsworth) Ltd were accepted as they had provided the tender which gave the best value for money. By now we had reached 2003.
In order to have the funding package in place the City Council as the SRB6 'Accountable Body' placed a 'Legal Charge' on the building and the site. This incurred solicitors' fees and some delay in putting the funding package in place and starting the building work. Stubbs Brothers Builders as the main contractor then appointed their Site agent who took charge of the project for them. Our main contractor organised the clearance of asbestos, demolition and clearance of the site, and then managed and organised the sub contractors e.g. for drainage, foundations, brick work, plumbing, electrical, roofing. With one main contractor working through a Site Agent supervising all sub contractors the building work proceeded smoothly. Regular 'on site meetings' were held between a representative of the Church (as the client), the builders, architects, quantity surveyors and structural engineer on a month by month basis to ensure smooth progress, good liaison and a rapid way to overcome problems and agree any detailed changes to the design.
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Monthly payments were made to the main contractor through 'Architect's Certificates'. For each site meeting the Quantity Surveyor 'measured' the amount of work carried out by Stubbs Brothers Builders and their sub contractors since the previous site meeting, and placed a valuation on that work. The architects issued an Architect's Certificate for this specific amount of money which the church paid to Stubbs Brothers Builders who then paid their sub contractors. This process stayed in place until the building was competed, commissioned and handed over to the church in March 2005. The contract with the builders required 5% of the total value of the building contract to be retained by the Church. A 12-month “snagging” period is in place during which time the contractors will return to the site to make good any defects without making any additional charge apart from the 5% due to be paid to them at the end of the contract. During this 12 month period, the Church was paying other bills to the main contractor, again detailed in Architect's Certificates for work carried out in addition to the contract as initially tendered. The building contract will be completed in March 2006 when the final 5% is paid over to Stubbs Brothers Builders (Handsworth).
Some learning points:
- Allow sufficient time from inception to full operation, this capital project took nearly 6 years to complete.
- Plan a fund raising strategy that will raise the maximum predicted funding - initial estimates always have to be revised upward - for this project the capital funding took nearly 2 years to raise.
- It is a false economy to attempt to save money by not having a full design team or by endeavouring to have volunteers carry out work that should be carried out by building professionals.
- Allow sufficient money in your budget for fees to be paid to your architect, quantity surveyor, structural engineer and solicitor (15% - 17% of the total project value is not an unusual amount to pay).
Farewell to Rodney and Ann Reed. Four organisations comprise the Handsworth Funding and Fundraising Consortium and for the last six months of this project The Scarman Trust (one of the Steering Group Members) will be acting as the project manager. In the same way as for the past 18 months you will be able to contact the SRB6 Community and Voluntary Sector Funding and Fundraising Support Project via our 'ansa-line' 0121 551 7796 and e-mail funds4groups@aol.com. Rodney and Ann are moving out of Handsworth on 31 March 2006 in order to run a development project in Dhaka, Bangladesh. They plan to work in Bangladesh for at least the next five years. Specialist fundraising and bid-writing support will continue to be available to voluntary organisations, community groups and faith based organisations in the SRB6 area by specialist staff managed by the Scarman Trust, engaged and paid for by the 'SRB6 Community and Voluntary Sector Funding and Fundraising Support Project'. If you haven’t registered with the project, please fill in and send back the form on the registration page - click here.
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Reed Consultances Ltd 2004