TNAG-2960-FCO40-4239-Future-of-Hong-Kong-British-Consulate-General-building-incl-1993 — Page 8

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Surveyors, Widnell).

Farrell have now produced revised PSDS to take

their

account of the above changes Farrell's revised drawings maintained

the quality and operational efficiency of the buildings. We therefore instructed Farrell in March 1993 to Fgress their

proposals to Final Sketch Design in order to maintain the current programme for occupation by 1 July 1996.

haliter

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and

6. The future Consulate General, as now designed, will satisfy all HMG's post-1997 needs, and house them in a quality construction kinkding of

litling

www providing excellent value for money We will effectively, as the

Foreign Secretary noted in his minute to the Prime Minister, (get a building at half price. The estimate cost is also beiver: the Treasury published suffly Estimates for 1993/94 which sintes in table I that the cost of the Hong Kong project is £29m.

to look at ways of reducing

Nevertheless mi

the costs:

·

continue

(a) Reduce further the requirements of the Consulate-General

and British Council

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To achieve any real cost savings on construction we would

need to reduce by a whole floor. The British Council

final their/rev:

hally

have completed their review of their requirements and

have identified a saving of 320m2 nett (approximately

mme

floor). But this space can be immediately and

and/sensibly

utilised by Procurement Section (nett requirements 360m2 )

who were omitted from the Consulate-General side in our

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1

J

?

(b)

earlier cost savings exercise: this will prevent the need

mene

for Procurement Unit to be housed off site in/expensive

leased premises. The_FCO/ODA Management Review Staff (MRS)

(five commed out;

Section began, en 22 March 1993 a further review of

future staffing of the Consulate-General.

Their interim

report suggests that the previously envisaged staffing

nemenn right,

Thise

requirements are generally satisfactory except for the

to meet.

?

tan O

Passport Section, which has varied year cyclical

demand. The main implication of this is that the

currently designed passport space could be underused to

about cri

live) the extent of whole floor (1000m2 gross for out of

if other uses were not found to crccupy the spare year cycle, we are now considering various

every

We

کس

parkerin

-fively

to

a

options, including/renting we anticipate that the DCF

er the

To fimport Section appraisals, which are being prepared, but not yet

1

(given that the land is cort-fuce) available, will show that it is more economical,

nomical/to

and have under-used space for a period compared to

mane

renting and fitting out the exact requirements on a

yearly basis. His, obvidualy,

obodily in becand

the

build

Omit all the residential accommodation and amenities.

is our strongly-held view that the flats represent

particularly good value for money; they are thoroughly

cost-effective as compared to renting (please see alse

इ

It

DCF appraisals) and should be retained. I alw have an

From the point operational value hom being on sike. of view of designed concept and operational efficiency of

the buildings, it would be technically possible to omit

the 7 remaining UK staff flats and amenities without

serious impact, but their deletion would not be sensible.

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1

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(c) Reduce the building specification

experkice

this area

area),

The current estimate includes savings already made by

optimisation of the substructure design on this difficult

sloping site, and by reducing some of the specifications

and particularly Surines (who i se a developer's & and refinements to the designs. We will continue to look

for ways of reducing the specifications without

unacceptably detracting from the quality of the building,

when we receive the Final Sketch Designs and Report.

OED to find the shortfall of funds-from-elsewhere-in-the-

Overseas Estates programme.

would

This option will be extremely painful and will entail

delays on other projects Nevertheless, we believe that

any

meeting the currently forecast excess over the PES

provision could be done, with careful management, without

unacceptably-distorting the capital programme.

A decision will be taken in the light of the appraisal of options for the passfort -issuing operations &

Given these options, our initial appraisal is that24

boquether

and 4 (d)/åre the only ones which avoid being unrealistic

or theconomic in the long term.

7.

all

I attach a completed Project Approval Proforma. I also attach

DCF appraisals of both this project and the only other

eurrently realistic option i.e. renting. As stated in para 1 we fully appraised in 1989/90 other options and/those that included involving land cost elements remain relatively expensive in

comparison with building on the free Colvin House Site. The

terms of the PTG prevents the use of our site for "Commercial"

nuuh mae

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