The cost of the new Doon Valley Campus could increase by £7.6m after councillors agreed to raise the cap on spending.
The spending cap on refurbishment work at St Sophia’s Primary in Galston has also shot up by £800,000.
In its first meeting of the new administration on Wednesday, the council’s cabinet heard that the Doon Campus is now expected to cost up to £41.1m, while the refurbishment at St Sophia’s is budgeted for £4.4m.
It is the fourth increase to the Dalmellington campus project’s budget and is more than double the original £18.5m set aside in 2016. That figure rose to £30m in 2020, then £33.5m in 2021.
The latest increase has been attributed to inflation and problems with supplies and manpower attributed to the likes of Covid and the Ukraine war.
East Ayrshire Council will not have to foot the entire £7.6m bill, though, having agreed additional funding from NHS Ayrshire & Arran and Police Scotland, who will make use of the facilities.
Councillors agreed to support additional borrowing of £5m to make up the shortfall.
The report to the cabinet stated: “Since the initial Affordability Cap was established the construction industry has seen an unprecedented rise in costs as a result of significant volatility in the materials market due to residual covid lockdown delays and the war in Ukraine that has affected raw material and fuel supplies.”
The council received better news in the form of an increase in revenue support from the Scottish Government.
The council had expected to receive around £15.65m from the Scottish Government’s Learning Estate Investment Programme.
The latest indication is that this will rise to £21.36m.
Like the Doon Campus project, the estimated Scottish Government revenue funding for St Sophia’s Primary has risen from £1.8m to £3.45m.
Independent Doon Valley councillor Drew Filson sought assurances that the campus project would be delivered by the deadline of December 2025.
Alistair Kidd, project planning and resource manager, explained that the design team had already began looking at concept designs for the project, which mitigated some of the delays.
But he admitted that the original completion date of July 2025 had been pushed back to October, but was still ahead of the December deadline.
SNP councillor Iain Linton asked for a size comparison with the William McIlvanney Campus in Kilmarnock.
He was told that the footprint of the Kilmarnock campus, opened in 2018, was up to double the size of the Doon Campus.
Andrew Kennedy, the head of facilities at EAC, explained: “Even in the last two years we have had £2.5m in inflation costs.
“There are other issues with this project which is reflected in government funding. We are looking to develop this to significantly greater design standards to achieve net zero and the Scottish Government looked to increase budget by about 12 percent to address those issues.”
New Labour group leader Maureen McKay raised the issue of decanting pupils from St Sophia’s Primary during refurbishment, asking whether delays in school projects would impact on the timings of decants.
Mr Kennedy responded: “We have been utilising the old Kirkstyle Primary School. We had Loanhead in there and then Crosshouse.
“The Crosshouse project is a wee bit delayed. St Sophia’s was scheduled to be in Kirkstyle for the decant around August, but we are probably looking at October."
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