The Redevelopment Group learned recently that a structural engineer was unlikely to give a clean bill of health to the concrete cladding on the front of the building. Based on experience of structures from a similar era, it is likely that metal fixtures are corroded.
The group met a week past Wednesday, and agreed that it would be wrong to ignore this problem. We decided to ask the architect to incorporate a whole new frontage, much of which could be glass, into his revised designs; the architect suggests this frontage could be ‘substantially’ cheaper than that in the original plans.
The Church Council previously agreed to pay professional fees of about £2,000 to find out whether the plans at that stage were feasible within our budget of £250,000 including VAT. The intention now is to spend the £2k in testing the latest plans.