MPs could be housed in courtyard facility during £5.7bn Parliament refurb

Major works needed to restore and renew the Houses of Parliament will cost between £3.5bn and £5.7bn and take between five and 40 years to complete, according to an Independent Options Appraisal (IOA) report.

The report, prepared by international consultancy Aecom, financial group Deloitte and architect HOK, outlines the possible options that could be taken to protect and modernise the Grade I listed building, pointing out that it “is reaching the point where its condition is deteriorating, risks are growing and partial patching and mending interventions are no longer sufficient”.

Three delivery options are outlined to achieve compliance with legislation, maintain World Heritage and Grade I listing status, and repair or replace systems on a like-for-like basis.

The most expensive option, costing an estimated £5.7bn (of which construction and construction delivery costs would be £1.26bn) is the rolling programme of phased works that allows MPs to stay in the building throughout.

This option, which would take between 25 and 40 years to complete, would still involve both chambers alternately having to be relocated to a temporary structure (possibly in either New Palace Yard or Speakers Courtyard) for between two and four years.

The cost breakdowns for each of the options include construction works and delivery; inflation; risk; programme management; and VAT. 

According to the report this option may be “superficially attractive” given the ability for occupiers and functions to remain within the Palace of Westminster “however there would still need to be a relocation to a temporary chamber within the PoW boundary.

“Furthermore, it brings with it the longest overall schedule duration with high levels of delivery risk in areas such as market fluctuations, continuity of resources, together with policy and technological change (eg obsolesce) over a protracted period stretching into decades.”

Second, a complete temporary relocation to provide contractors unconstrained access to Houses of Parliament would be the quickest and cheapest option, costing £3.5bn (of which construction and construction delivery costs would be £960m) and taking between five and years to complete.

A third option, involving a partial decant during which each House would, in turn, move out to a temporary location and return upon completion, would cost £3.9bn (of which construction and construction delivery costs would be £1.05 bn) and take between nine and 14 years.

Potential scope of works

Although the report does not give a recommendation it does suggest that decanting  – under options two and three – will offer better value for money.

John Hicks, UK head of government & public sector at AECOM, commented: “The report intentionally does not contain recommendations on which scenario to choose. As technical lead for the consortium team, AECOM has focused on helping define the ‘what’ in terms of scenarios and the ‘how’, as well as ‘when’ the project could be delivered.

“This focus, together with both capital and life cost, and robust analysis of the engineering challenges from replacement services to environmental issues, have been principal ingredients of the IOA report.”

Beyond these minimum scope proposals, the report also explores options to improve the building’s amenity with the installation of additional lifts, basement renovated for goods distribution route, landscaping of courtyard and the construction of a new media centre. This is expected to cost £4.4bn

The final further option outlined, costing £3.9bn and requiring a full decant, would make “significant improvements” to the building including glazing over two internal courts to form atriums and the creation of a visitor centre.

All of the options assume a start date for construction of May 2020, which the report says is s “deliverable, but extremely challenging” and  in turn is based on achieving a decision in Principle in Q1 2016.

However, the report outlines several steps that need to happen before this is possible including:

• establishing joint governance at a political level;
• developing a plan of work and master plan;
• developing a strategy for and completing survey work;
• conducting design work;
• establishing a decant and estates strategy; and
• the procurement of decant buildings.

The report estimates that any delays to the decision in principle beyond this timescale will add between £60m and £85m per year  to the capital cost in addition to tender price inflation.

And to meet the 2020 deadline, other activities would also need to be progresses including estanblishment of a BIM strategy and survey work to understand the buildings more fully.