Belvedere Development – Additional Approval

The Belvedere Warehousing Development currently has an approved budget of £36.7m. Further additional costs of up to £12.4m are now requested in order to complete the project. The additional costs are to be funded from within the MPS capital programme.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. approve that the development of Belvedere should continue. Noting if the project does not complete this could result in the need to write back to revenue capital costs of up to £30M, the loss of capital receipts of up to £58.6M and revenue savings of £0.7M.

2. approve additional expenditure of £12.4M for the redevelopment of Belvedere, noting that £8M has already been provided for in the capital programme approved in February 2019.

3. Note that the balance of funding required of £4.4M is in the short term to be managed within the existing control total for property services capital programme. Funding of the uplift will be reassessed at the first quarter’s budget monitoring report as part of a review of the capital programme.

4. To note the delay in project completion of approximately 12 months, to end December 2019. There is no impact on the realisation of the linked capital receipts for Ponton Road, and the surplus land at Hendon Driving School, both of which are expected in 2019/20 in accordance with the current capital receipts budget

1. Introduction and background

1.1. The Belvedere Redevelopment was initially approved in 2015, with an uplift in funding approved in 2017. This paper requests approval for further additional funding to complete the project.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The detail of the additional costs required to complete this project are set out in Part 2, and in summary include ground floor slab reinforcement, disposal of contaminated material, revisions to drainage & car park, and a separate ammunition store.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. Additional capital approval for £12.4m is sought in order to finalise this project. Of this sum £8m funding has already been identified to the project and the remaining £4.4m will be contained within the existing overall capital programme.

3.2. Approval of the additional funds and completion of the project will protect the generation of capital receipts from the disposal of sites which the Belvedere investment will release, the avoidance of writing off up to £30m of investment to date, and protection of £0.7m of annual revenue savings.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. Section 6 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (“the Act”) provides the MOPAC must secure the maintenance of the Metropolitan Police Service, and secure that the Metropolitan Police is efficient and effective.

4.2. In carrying out its functions, the MOPAC may, under paragraph 7, Schedule 3 of “the Act “do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of the Office”. This includes, entering into contracts and other agreements, in addition to acquiring and disposing of property (including land

4.3. Under 4.9 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent the DMPC must approve “Budget virements or movements of £500,000 and above, (whether on a temporary or permanent basis”

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. See Part 2

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. [see Guidance] The programme does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no GDPR issues to be considered

7. Equality Comments

7.1. There are no direct equality implications arising from this proposal.