Your questions for the Somerleyton Road development manager and design team

Stage 1: Detailed plans and planning permission (March 2014  to Sep 2014)

In Stage 1 the team will:

a)      Develop the project brief with the steering group and the local community;

b)      Develop a transparent financial model to demonstrate the “trade-offs” and what’s possible;

c)      Provide an inclusive and transparent design process (minimum of 8 stakeholder workshops);

d)      Help determine the most cost-effective way of funding the project and ownership arrangements;

e)      Secure planning consent for the site;

IF the council is confident the plans are viable and they meet the council’s and the community’s ambitions, the project will proceed to Stage 2

Stage 2: Construction & hand-over (Jun 2015 to Apr 2017)

Once planning permission has been granted the team will:

a)      Procure a contractor and manage the build contract on behalf of the council;

b)      Ensure that the quality and vision of the scheme is achieved;

c)      Handover the development to Lambeth or the community trust/ cooperative on completion;

Lambeth’s questions

Lambeth has advertised the role with the following preliminary questions:

1) Demonstrate a successful track record of delivering similar sized, mixed use schemes in an urban setting.

2) What would you consider to be your best development in terms of design quality on a site with similar constraints to Somerleyton Road - and why do you consider it to be your best.

3) Demonstrate your approach to project management for similar projects.

4) Demonstrate how you have previously worked in an open and transparent way with local communities, involving them in decision making.

5) Lambeth’s Business Questionnaire (are they a viable business to take on the role etc).

Please see the link below for the document issued to applicants:

…help suggest additional questions

We want the community to help decide additional questions for the teams applying. For example the additional questions could be used to get a better understanding of the team’s ‘best development’ and ‘track record’ e.g.

• Have they been involved with delivering efficient homes that are intensively used (i.e. families seven days a week rather than just single/couples only living in the home for the working week).
• The nature of the heritage buildings they’ve dealt with.
• Their approach to environmental sustainability.

Additional questions suggested so far include:

1)      Who will be assigned from their company to work on the project:

1. Who will be the director and where they sit in the pecking order of the organisation.
2. What their capabilities and specific experience are.
3. Will we have experienced specialists committing sufficient time and effort?

2)      What will they do to ensure the council and the community gets the best value:

1. How would the project team remove unnecessary expenditure?
2. How, in an ideal world, would they phase the development to make it as cost-effective as possible?