Estimated cost of renovation work at City Baths placed at £1million - up £400k

Barry O’Hagan, Head of Community & Leisure at Derry City & Strabane District Council, told the Health & Community Committee the projected cost of mechanical and electrical (M&E) works at the swimming pool has risen by £400,000.

“Members will be aware that we have an approved budget of £600,000. The pre-tender estimate has risen substantially. It’s somewhere around the £1m mark,” Mr. O’Hagan told the committee.

UUP Alderman Derek Hussey suggested the increase is ‘something we can expect from a lot of tenders that haven’t commenced due to price rises’.

“Am I right in thinking this is for what was previously proposed for the City Baths - essentially a short-term fix that would only last, or be guaranteed to last, a couple of years, or something like that? Is that correct?” asked Ald. Hussey.

Mr. O’Hagan replied: “Yes this is the major upgrade, the majority of the works will be done around the M&E systems.

“There is some structural health and safety work done but yeah that’s in order for us to safely reopen the centre and achieve all our certification, mainly around the M&E works.”

Mr. O’Hagan told the committee any successful contractor will only be likely to give a finite time guarantee.

“We would hope we would get longer than that but we have an indication it would give us three to five years in terms of use of those particular components. There may be other elements within the building that may need work within that timeframe but this is mainly the M&E systems within the building,” he said.

Ald. Hussey said this was ‘disappointing’.

“We are currently £400,000 over the allocated money that is there. Do we have any idea where that is going to come out of and when are we expecting...is there any kind of light timeframe at the minute of when we can expect the tenders to be done, the work to be done and the work to be finished so we can get this facility opened again because it is a much used facility within that particular area?”

Sinn Féin Colr. Emma McGinley said: “The public demand is there for the work to be done on the City Baths and the service users are eagerly awaiting any form of update.”

People Before Profit Colr. Shaun Harkin said: “There is still overwhelming support, it seems to me, for getting the baths renovated and getting them into use as soon as possible.”

Mr. O’Hagan said: “There is no current budget outside of that £600,000 so we have forwarded that on to the Chief Finance Office for consideration and that will be one of the reports that he discusses at capital working group with members in terms of the remaining capital budget that council has and how members would like to prioritise that.”

He said it remains possible the final cost could come in at more than £1m.

“The reason for not bringing a report in to seek approval for the additional £400,000 was that if the tenders actually came in more expensive we didn’t want to be coming in again on two separate occasions with an ask for this project.”

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