Completion of Michael Faraday Avenue, Kingsway Business Park, Rochdale

Descriptions

Kingsway Business Park is located immediately adjacent to Junction 21 of the M62. It is of strategic importance to the Borough, with approximately 60% of the available land now developed and it currently provides employment for upto 5,500 people. The road infrastructure comprises a spine road through the business park (Sir Isaac Newton Way), with two loop roads providing access to all of the existing businesses and future development plots. One of these loop roads (Michael Faraday Avenue is incomplete) with a section of some 300 metres yet to be constructed over the Stanney Brook Corridor. Grant funding has been secured from the Get Building Fund (a Central Government Covid recovery initiative) to fund the construction of this missing link. The expenditure deadline for this funding is March 2022, which requires the construction of the road by this date. In order to achieve this, a direct appointment from a framework has been authorised by the Council. Eric Wright Construction have submitted a tender and the Council are looking to appoint them under the Procure Partnerships Framework. The cost for constructing the road and associated works is £2,614,819.09. In addition, an allowance of 15% (£392k) has been made within the budget for risk and contingency. The overall budget will be managed to ensure that the total scheme cost (including other items such as fees, site investigations etc) does not exceeed the grant amount. A Value for Money exercise has been undertaken by specialist consultants (Walker Sime) by way of a comparison of prices with the South Heywood Junction 19 Link Road which was tendered using a competitive OJEU process in 2020. This concludes that the price is value for money (copy attached). The total grant funding amount is £3.5m. Should the cost of the Michael Faraday Avenue contract, associated works and fees be less than this, a second section of road will be constructed within the Business Park to create an access to one of the currently undeveloped plots.