News: Market pressures lead to bigger bill for Rotherham Council
The cabinet at Rotherham Council is being asked to sign off on the rising costs of the markets redevelopment in Rotherham town centre, or risk millions in regeneration funding going back to the government.
The final price for the scheme, which includes the markets, a new library and public realm, has not yet been made public.
Rothbiz reported at the end of 2023 that the authority was committed to the second largest regeneration scheme in the town centre behind Forge Island, despite a rise in costs. It meant that contractors, Henry Boot, could start enabling works as the detailed design and costs were worked out.
Having secured government money (£8.9m) from the Future High Streets Fund in 2020 for the project, a funding gap of £9.8m was identified in 2022, largely due to the impact of inflation on the project delivery costs. Total costs are now over £30m.
Later this month, the council's cabinet is being asked to approve the final cost plan for the markets and library.
A council report states: "The redevelopment of the Rotherham Markets Complex was identified as a key project in the adopted 2017 Rotherham Town Centre Masterplan. The project aims to introduce new, complementary uses and activities to the complex, such as the Central Library (including gallery and makers space), a food hub as well as enhancing the indoor and outdoor (covered) market.
"Bringing together the library, markets, food hall and gallery/makers spaces on one site will provide the potential to increase footfall and thereby support and sustain the future of the library service, the market and small independent retailers across the town centre.
"A wide-ranging value engineering exercise has been undertaken to identify how the scope of the project can be delivered and quality maintained within the budget agreed by Cabinet in December 2023. Final contract prices have been made available by the contractor Henry Boot. These costs, together with fees and contingency exceed the budget agreed by Cabinet in December 2023.
"It is proposed that the additional budget requirement will be met from the Council’s capital contingency."
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The financial details are considered exempt due to commercial reasons and have not been made public.
Budget documents from last month relating to the council's capital programme has the total project budget for the markets redevelopment at £30.2m.
Options of a reduced scheme, or not to carry out any redevelopment, have been considered and discounted.
Cllr. Chris Read, leader of Rotherham Council, discussed scrapping the markets redevelopment at the recent full council meeting. He said: "£4m has already been spent on the markets - £4m of sunk costs gone - and we would be sending back to the government £9m of government funding. We have talked about the cost of austerity for all these years and I'm not sure we've got 13 million quid we can afford to just give away and send back to the government. And I'm not sure they would spend it more wisely than we would anyway.
"There are lots of really good examples of town centres with thriving markets - at Doncaster, at Barnsley now, at Sheffield down the Moor, accross northern towns - spaces where people can come together, businesses can start up, people have face-to-face relationships with other people and not just buying something on Amazon, as convenient as that might be.
"It [the market] creates a hub in the middle of a town and time and time again what people have said to me is that we want to get the good things about Rotherham back. We want to see a bustling town centre. We want to see some of those good things that used to be there in place. We have the opportunity to do that, and we've started that work, and it would simply be bizarre to take that away from them."
Having been granted "pathfinder status" by the government, Rotherham schemes backed by Town Deal, Future High Streets Fund and the Levelling Up Fund, which includes the markets, must now be completed by March 2026.
Images: RMBC
The final price for the scheme, which includes the markets, a new library and public realm, has not yet been made public.
Rothbiz reported at the end of 2023 that the authority was committed to the second largest regeneration scheme in the town centre behind Forge Island, despite a rise in costs. It meant that contractors, Henry Boot, could start enabling works as the detailed design and costs were worked out.
Having secured government money (£8.9m) from the Future High Streets Fund in 2020 for the project, a funding gap of £9.8m was identified in 2022, largely due to the impact of inflation on the project delivery costs. Total costs are now over £30m.
Later this month, the council's cabinet is being asked to approve the final cost plan for the markets and library.
A council report states: "The redevelopment of the Rotherham Markets Complex was identified as a key project in the adopted 2017 Rotherham Town Centre Masterplan. The project aims to introduce new, complementary uses and activities to the complex, such as the Central Library (including gallery and makers space), a food hub as well as enhancing the indoor and outdoor (covered) market.
"Bringing together the library, markets, food hall and gallery/makers spaces on one site will provide the potential to increase footfall and thereby support and sustain the future of the library service, the market and small independent retailers across the town centre.
"A wide-ranging value engineering exercise has been undertaken to identify how the scope of the project can be delivered and quality maintained within the budget agreed by Cabinet in December 2023. Final contract prices have been made available by the contractor Henry Boot. These costs, together with fees and contingency exceed the budget agreed by Cabinet in December 2023.
"It is proposed that the additional budget requirement will be met from the Council’s capital contingency."
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The financial details are considered exempt due to commercial reasons and have not been made public.
Budget documents from last month relating to the council's capital programme has the total project budget for the markets redevelopment at £30.2m.
Options of a reduced scheme, or not to carry out any redevelopment, have been considered and discounted.
Cllr. Chris Read, leader of Rotherham Council, discussed scrapping the markets redevelopment at the recent full council meeting. He said: "£4m has already been spent on the markets - £4m of sunk costs gone - and we would be sending back to the government £9m of government funding. We have talked about the cost of austerity for all these years and I'm not sure we've got 13 million quid we can afford to just give away and send back to the government. And I'm not sure they would spend it more wisely than we would anyway.
"There are lots of really good examples of town centres with thriving markets - at Doncaster, at Barnsley now, at Sheffield down the Moor, accross northern towns - spaces where people can come together, businesses can start up, people have face-to-face relationships with other people and not just buying something on Amazon, as convenient as that might be.
"It [the market] creates a hub in the middle of a town and time and time again what people have said to me is that we want to get the good things about Rotherham back. We want to see a bustling town centre. We want to see some of those good things that used to be there in place. We have the opportunity to do that, and we've started that work, and it would simply be bizarre to take that away from them."
Having been granted "pathfinder status" by the government, Rotherham schemes backed by Town Deal, Future High Streets Fund and the Levelling Up Fund, which includes the markets, must now be completed by March 2026.
Images: RMBC
18 comments:
There won't be any traders left to fill the redeveloped market at this. Ever since they closed the entrance from Drummond Street through the outdoor market the indoor market has seen it's already low footfall drop off a cliff. In the last couple of weeks some more stalls have closed with the fishmongers being the latest to go. Many traders currently aren't breaking even and several of them are contemplating handing in their notice to end their lease.
Maybe if they just got on with plans and actually got construction under way instead of talking about it for years,then costs wouldn't keep rising,never known a town where things take so long, meanwhile other neighbouring towns/cities are actually using there facilities,cos they actually get on with development, suggest council take a leaf out of Barnsley's book!
Perhaps they should close the indoor market for good and just hold outdoor markets. Bought a few items from the Asian market this morning and the town was busier than I've seen it for years. All the stall seemed to be doing really good business as we're the local cafes.
Ahaha, what a joke always knew it wouldn’t happen!! Where has 4 million been spent? Think chris is just trying to get a few more backhanders
Yes, let’s just shut down business that people have spent years building up because you’ve seen it busy outdoors a few times. The Asian market is busy but the customers are predominantly also Asian and come from all over Yorkshire but spend very little at the non Asian stalls. The street market is also cancelled a lot whenever it’s raining or windy. Which is a lot.
I work in Chesterfield and their outdoor market is always busy. I wonder if having the market outdoor and closer to the other shops etc helps make the centre as a whole busier?
Meanwhile the joint authority are intent on wasting millions on trying to reopen an airport that virtually none of us used .I don't want my taxes paying for it,I suggest others stand up and make some point,get money spent in Rotherham,not a white elephant of a vanity project for Sheffield and now it seems Doncaster....(it's now a city don't you know)and getting the same delusions we've had for years from Sheffield!
You are absolutely right of course. Our Council and Planning Department are an absolute joke. We are the Rotherham United of the Planning world.
This needs to get done, the Markets need to be part of the regeneration of the Town Centre. The naysayers need to understand if regeneration does not happen Rotherham Town Centre will not get better, maybe they do not care, but I do and will carry on fighting for what is best for the town, and I can assure you the regeneration of the Markets are what this town needs, it has worked elsewhere and it will work for Rotherham. Support efforts from this Labour council to make Rotherham a better place, the alternative is far worst I can assure the Naysayers of that.
But that is the nature of naysayers. They are only happy carping.
I'd prefer council tax money is used for absolute essentials first. If there's eventually a surplus of cash then fine, but otherwise priorities need sorting.
Don't think it council tax that's used for these projects.
What would you class as essentials?
What puzzles me about the market redevelopment is that it doesn't seem that long ago that RMBC used EU money to build the giant roof covering, which I seem to recall we told at the time that it would extend the life of the market for another 20-30 years.
For what it's worth I like the plans for the market, but as usual with RMBC everything seems to be backwards. They've knackered the road systems into and out of Rotherham, and now seen to be spending millions to try and get people back. I wonder what would have happened if they had prioritised project like this, rather than those stupid, and frankly dangerous cycle lanes.
We're miles behind Barnsley and Doncaster in terms of regeneration, and I hope in the long term this will be a positive step... hopefully.
Cycle lanes, public realm benches, international first class travel fact finding events for councillors, mayoral limousine... that kind of stuff.
I believe the roof was installed in 1999, so it's lasted 25 years which would match the predicted 20-30 year lifespan.
Ironically the outdoor market was always busier before the roof went on.
Everywhere was busier before 1999!
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