South Ayrshire Council has refused to answer questions about a supported housing scheme in Ayr that has cost at least £260,000 per unit.
The housing at Fort Street/ Citadel Place has had a troubled life, with the original contractors CBC (Glasgow) Ltd, going to the wall just four months after the council approved its bid in December 2019.
The only other bidder at the time was Ashleigh Building, which took over the project in 2020.
Twelve two apartment units, being developed for residents with mental health issues, are being built at the site. The original cost for the project, published in 2016, was £1.9m.
This had risen to £2.7m by May 2019 and reached £3.039m by the end of that year.
Of this, £1.650m of the 2016 costs was directly related to the contract and professional fees. This rose to £2.566m by November 2019.
The council did secure an increase in funding support from the Scottish Government from £59,000 per unit to £69,000 – a total of £828,000.
The majority of the remainder came from the council’s housing revenue account and second homes council tax fund. With health a catalyst for the project, SAC had asked South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership for financial support, but this request was knocked back.
The council explained the increase in cost, saying it was ‘a result of changes to the scope of the project, design and specification changes and inflation’.
However, that was one of the only questions the council was willing to answer in detail.
Instead, they cited commercial sensitivity as a reason not to answer a number of questions:
- whether the cost of the project had risen?
- whether manpower and supply of materials had played a part?
- whether Ashleigh was awarded the contract as the only other bidder?
- whether there were financial implications in awarding the contract to Ashleigh?
- what is the difference between standard housing and supported housing in terms of development costs?
The council was subsequently asked to explain why these questions were deemed commercially sensitive.
They replied: “We can’t answer these questions because they are discussed in a confidential report which has not been released to the public.”
One of the reasons for the higher cost of the development is the fact that it is being built in a conservation area and has to meet certain standards over and above normal housing standards.
Asked whether other sites had been considered that would not require the additional outlay to meet these standards, a council spokesman said: “The gap site was purchased by the council with the purpose of building housing in a town centre location and was considered a suitable location for this use.”
The spokesman did insist that the council had carried out checks on the viability of CBC (Glasgow) Ltd and that, despite the cost of each unit, the project met its criteria for best value.
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