Agenda item

This report provides an update on the Littlehampton Seafront Project.

Before inviting the Principal Landscape and Project Officer to present her report, the Chair alerted the Committee to the addendum that had been published to the Committee’s web page and circulated to Members earlier in the afternoon, forming part of the supplement pack.

The Principal Landscape and Project Officer started her presentation by referring to the addendum as this contained recommendations for the Committee to consider referring to funding made available to the project since the original project budget had been approved. The recommendations enabled this funding to be formally included within the budget, it was not seeking any extra funding.

Turning the Committee’s attention to the main report, it was explained that this formed a further project update since the last update received on 12 February 2024. This would be the last update report that the Committee would receive before work would commence on site. There were still a few details to finalise in terms of confirming exact start dates which would be published soon. Before work would commence on site, there would be some activities for the project team to work through and complete, the team was currently planning to submit the information required to discharge the pre-commencement planning conditions. Procurement packages continued to be issued so that a price could be obtained for the full works and surveys would be carried out on site soon to accurately locate utility services and establish the depth of these. This work was planned for next week and would involve a series of trenches being dug and then backfilled to ensure that the area would remain safe for people to use.  Before the main works would commence, some temporary facilities would be installed in particular locations, and that work would commence next month. In drawing up the phasing plans, the contractor had adopted the principle of keeping disruption to a minimum around the seafront and maintaining the car park during the summer period. The high level phasing had been set out in the report and the detail on this would be made available soon.  It was outlined how critical communication would be and so work was underway now to coordinate with other teams to make sure this captured all audiences. Project updates would be made available to all Members of the Council as well as being placed on the Council’s web site.

Before entering debate, the recommendations were proposed by Councillor Nash and seconded by Councillor Cooper.

In debating the report, the Principal Landscape and Project Officer was asked if the operators at Harbour Park had been kept updated as they had been making enquiries as to what would be happening over the summer. Similarly, The Littlehampton Bonfire Society had also raised concerns about whether they would be able to operate their event this autumn. In response, Members were advised that the Project Team would be planning to meet with Harbour Park shortly as part of the ongoing conversations. The Project Team had not met with the Bonfire Society as contact so far had been via the Council’s Events Officer. A written update to the Committee was requested.

The Committee

          RESOLVED

To approve the total capital project budget be increased by £81k to £7,346,501 made up of:

a)    £25k for PV panels from the Council’s Climate Change budget, funded from revenue reserves offset by a correspondence underspend against the aforementioned budget; and

b)    £56k for Design Guardians, funded from the LUF Capacity and Capability grant.