Millwood Primary Special School
Report of the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People is attached.
Minutes:
Councillor Lucy Smith, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, presented the confidential report which sought for additional services costs to enable the project to expand Millwood Primary Special School to proceed to RIBA stage 3.
Decision:
Cabinet approved expenditure in the total sum of £180,000 to meet the costs of additional services in support of the planning application and associated compliance and technical advisory work.
Reasons for the decision:
Development of additional capacity at Millwood Primary Special School as set out in the Project Safety Valve agreement between the Council and the Department for Education, is a key element of the specialist place sufficiency strategy. Taken together, the Agreement and strategy set out the business case for the development of new provision and expansion of existing specialist provision to meet increasing demand within Bury and reduce the reliance on placements in Independent Non-Maintained Special Schools (INMSS). The project at Millwood Primary Special School is a priority within this strategy.
Other options considered and rejected:
Whilst it is possible to re-procure the scheme, this would result in significant delay to delivery of the project with no certainty that costs will be reduced.