AUSTIN WINKLEY & ASSOCIATES

this is an initial project home page for:

New Community Hall - St John's Kingston Vale

picture of st john's church

links:

selected austin winkley projects

budget costing (pdf)

project location map

project aerial photograph

parish web site

local planning authority development plan (RBKuT)

Introduction

As part of our service for larger projects, we provide a web site so that the people participating in it can have easy and immediate access to relevant documents and information as the project proceeds.

This can be of help in fostering democratic and informed participation in the project as it proceeds. Building projects are often controversial, and engendering a sense of openness and participation at appropriate times can be helpful in easing the process of fund raising and planning permission.

Parts of the web site can be password protected, or the address handed out to a limited number of people, so that documents and information for more limited circulation can be easily accessed and a clear project record maintained. This can be helpful for committee meetings and similar events.

Practice and project information

You have asked at this pre-shortlist stage for any further information on our practice, aside from that accessible from the links above. We have prepared information on specific projects which will give you an indication of the range and types of projects we undertake - click here to access this.

Fees

You have asked about the potential level of our fees for the project. Because we undertake wide range of services (see services), not all of which are necessarily appropriate for every project, the cost of our fees can vary significantly in percentage terms. For instance, we often carry out much or all of the cost control function on projects, since we find that the integration of design and cost expertise is an effective way to create "best value" for the project; if we do carry out this function then our fees are higher than if we do not.

Client decisions about the quality and scope of the project also have an effect.

In order to give some idea of the cost of fees we have therefore carried out a very initial and rough costing exercise for the project using official figures published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors ("RICS"). We have taken their data on the typical cost of projects of this type, taking into account location, to give an indication of the cost of building the project, from which it is possible to make an estimate of other project costs such as fees, VAT, inflation until the end of 2008 etc. We have used your figure of 650m2 for the size of the building, measured gross to the inside of the external walls.

This costing is available as a pdf download here.

Please note the following points in relation to the costing:

a total project cost of around £1.5m is suggested by this exercise
careful VAT planning is essential (which may have an effect on the design), because in some cases (as we have assumed here) there is no VAT charged on the actual building costs
please note that inflation is forecast to be high over the next 2 years; over £100,000 of the cost is made up of inflation. Due to factors such as the Olympics, it seems unlikely that inflation will ease in the period 2009-2012
professional fees are around £200,000 (once inflation is taken into account), ie about 13.5% of the total project cost
of this, we would expect to undertake at least items 11 (project management/feasibility) and 12 (standard architectural services), but might also carry out some or all of items 13 (cost control) and 14 (CDM-C - ie health and safety management), coming to a maximum of about 10% of the total project cost or 12% of the building cost
using the RICS figures is a useful and quick way to begin to establish a realistic budget cost for a building, since the figures are based on quote a wide statistical survey of current building prices
however, these figures do not substitute for a more exact estimate, and many quantity surveyors would say that the RICS figures tend to be optimistic, particularly if a building of higher quality than average is wanted

Conclusion

We trust that this information is helpful in establishing whether or not to include us on your shortlist. Whatever the outcome, please feel free to use the above information as you see fit, and we wish you all the best for the success of your project.

Austin Winkley

Tim Gough

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