Ever since the Council bought Ross House for £1.8m, in April 2018, it has eaten money and had so many issues, the 16 flats inside the building are now probably the most expensive Council flats in the County.
Over the last six years tenants have had to put up with fire remedial works, the fixing of roofs, kitchens, bathrooms, fire alarms, damp and mould and much more besides. If that wasn’t enough, the tenants had to be decanted to allow the retrofitting works to go ahead.
But that aside, earlier this month we asked a question regarding Ross House – the question was:
Ross House: Is this another dodgy £1m contract?
In that blog post we set out what has been spent on Ross House for the retrofitting up until March 2023.
Since then, the Council have published their April data and this shows the costs for “upgrading of the building fabric… insulate all external walls… the provision of AirSource heat pumps… photovoltaic solar panels, so as to achieve an overall EPC rating of ‘A’” has risen beyond the agreed awarded value of the contract which was: £1,024,989.
According to the Council’s Purchase Order (PO) data; which previously showed two purchase orders, it now shows three. When combined the total net PO data for the retrofit of Ross House is 21.2% above the awarded contract value of £1,024,989.
However when one looks at the Council’s payment to supplier data, one can see the Council have paid 21% more than the awarded contract value for the retrofit of Ross House.
One must not forget, the Council are yet to publish the May & June purchase order data and purchase to supplier data, which may show the costs to retrofit Ross House, are even higher than the awarded value of the contract. Time will tell.
Back in Dec 2022 Dr Susan Priest (pictured) the Chief Executive & Head of Paid Service of Folkestone & Hythe District Council, made her announcement the Council were doubling down on procurement because of all the financial and contractual irregularities.
Training for officers in relation to procurement begun on 12 Jan 2023, but given the evidence published by the Council, has anything truly changed?
We’ll leave you to ponder that.
The Shepway Vox Team
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