COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF LUCAN / PALMERSTOWN / NORTH CLONDALKIN AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

MOTION NO. 17

MOTION: Councillor P. Gogarty

That the Chief Executive provides a further update on the much-delayed refurbishment of the leisure centre and construction of the new swimming pool in Lucan, outlining whether a revised Q1 2023 opening target can be met; outlining what penalties, if any are being imposed for the significant delays; and undertakes to arrange a tour of the construction site for elected members in early October so that we can get a fuller understanding of the issues involved and be able to communicate this better with understandably irate constituents.

REPORT:

 Lucan Swimming Pool

This €13m+ project to deliver a new swimming pool in Lucan has been under construction since May 2019 but has been beset initially by Covid-related construction restrictions and further associated delays as well as subsequent challenges impacting the construction industry generally.  Despite repeated assurances and commitments from the contractor, it is evident that the timeline for completion of the construction programme for Lucan Swimming Pool is significantly even behind the most recently revised completion date advised by the contractor, which was by the end of December 2022.

The Council has had ongoing engagement and discussion with the contractor and the employer’s representative to achieve the earliest possible completion date as well as increasingly frequent site inspections to monitor progress and interrogate the resources and supply chain arrangements being applied to this contract by the contractor.  In particular, there have been ongoing challenges with engagement of sub-contractors for works that are critical to the programme.

As there are still significant works outstanding (see below) a completion date in Spring 2023 is the likely outcome if there is enhanced focus by the contractor together with their various sub-contractors and supply chain partners on optimising and effectively co-ordinating the remaining works. The majority of the outstanding items on the programme are to be carried out by sub-contractors and the contractor focus now is to try and get as many subcontractors working on-site as possible.

Key remaining elements of the works programme include:

Separately, the process for the engagement of an operator to manage, operate and maintain the Lucan Leisure Campus, comprising the swimming pool and the existing leisure centre is at the final stage of a procurement process and it is expected that the successful candidate will be announced in October.

This update has also been given to the Community,Sport and Equality SPC on Sept 20th

Any potential site visits will need to be cleared by Architects and the SEO will investigate the potential for this in the coming weeks.