1) To enable the senior project manager to award MACE a professional services contract to complete stage 1 of a full design process.

2) The council is content with this decision as the framework that will be used has been through a fair and transparent tendering process whereby Mace Ltd have won the 1st place on the framework. Value for money was assessed as part of the tendering process in the establishment of the framework agreement.

3) The Shirehall is in an unsafe state and is structurally unsafe and requires a technical team of architects, surveyors and technicians to review the state of the building and develop a design to ensure an accurate costing can be provided against the required works.

There have been several discussion around the specialist Architects that are required including discussions with representatives from the CIVIC society and the heritage building conservation officer. It has been noted that there are no local architects with the specialist required.

Timescales are short due to Health and Safety of the building and the council would like to be in a position to make an informed decision about the scheme as soon as possible.

The resources required are extremely technical and specialist architects are required to design the works due to the specialist nature of the building.

The building is a CIVIC building with high stakeholder interest and must be progressed in the correct compliant manner.


4) To enable the senior project manager to commission survey work identified to complete stage 1 of the design process.

5) To enable tight budget controls over expenditure the contingency value will be retained by the councils section 151 officer.

6) To significantly reduce the risk of further delay to the Shirehall project and allow the council to fullfill its obligation to receive an accurately designed and fully costed scheme to inform future decision making on the building.

7) To reduce the number of Record of Officer decisions required to enable spend which is having a negative impact on time and resources within the council.