Nottingham City Council has approved a further £305,000 for the refurbishment of Clifton Young Peoples Centre after additional and unforeseen works were identified during the project.
The decision relates to the conversion of the centre into a post-16 special educational needs and disabilities centre for Greenwood Academy Trust, allowing provision currently based at Nethergate Academy’s Swansdowne Drive site to relocate to Clifton.
The additional funding will come from the council’s High Needs Provision Capital Allocation Grant for 2022/23 and 2023/24. It increases the budget for the Clifton Young Peoples Centre project from £675,000 to £980,000, fully funded through the High Needs Capital Grant.
A previous delegated decision in May 2025 approved the refurbishment of the centre, with work beginning in November 2025 after Lindum Group Limited was awarded a contract worth £541,373.91 through the SCAPE Regional Construction Framework.
However, the council report says a contingency sum included in the original project budget is not enough to cover the full extent of further work now required.
The additional works include replacement of part of the flat roof, access control requirements, plant room and boiler repairs, and mechanical changes. These are costed at £260,747. The report says the roof was not originally considered a high priority because surveys had not identified significant repairs, but leaks over the winter period have worsened the condition of the building.
The council says that without the roofing works, the building would not be watertight and the boiler could not be commissioned, leaving the site without heating and hot water. That would prevent the post-16 SEND cohort from moving into the building and would mean additional SEND places at Swansdowne Drive could not be made available.
A further £72,597 is required for unforeseen works, including block and beam repairs to the first floor, repairs following vandalism, and design changes required by Building Control. The report says these adaptations are necessary to provide a safe learning environment for pupils.
The decision also covers £24,438 of works and services already provided for in the original contract, including design and procurement of a lift, a new sports curtain and car parking works. A new £10,000 contract with Perfect Circle JV Ltd will also be entered into for independent quantity surveying services to verify and challenge costs on site.
The relocation is part of wider plans to increase specialist SEND capacity in Nottingham.
Once the post-16 provision moves from Swansdowne Drive to Clifton, the vacated space will be repurposed to create additional capacity for pupils with complex needs, primarily autism spectrum disorder.
The council says the Swansdowne Drive site will provide up to 16 additional places from September 2026 and up to a further eight places from September 2027, making 24 places in total. The additional places will support pupils with severe learning difficulties, autism and other related diagnoses.
The report says the scheme remains financially viable and represents value for money, delivering 24 new specialist places at a cost of £40,600 per SEND place. It also states that this remains the most cost-effective SEND expansion currently being undertaken by Nottingham City Council.
The decision is linked to Nottingham’s updated SEND Sufficiency Strategy, approved by the council’s Executive Board on 24 February 2026. The report says additional specialist school capacity is urgently needed for both primary and secondary children, with demand continuing to grow.
Council officers warn that failing to create more maintained specialist school provision would pose a financial risk to the city’s High Needs revenue budget. The report says pupils whose needs cannot be met in mainstream education may otherwise require places in independent or non-maintained specialist schools, which cost an average of £65,000 per place per year, compared with £10,000 to £18,000 for local maintained specialist provision.
The report also says Nottingham is currently recording the highest rate of permanent exclusion in England, and that without specialist provision being available, excluded pupils are accessing high-cost places in pupil referral units or alternative provision.
The decision gives authority to the Corporate Director for Children’s and Education Services to modify the existing contract with Lindum Group Limited and to enter into the new consultancy contract with Perfect Circle JV Ltd. Legal and procurement comments in the report say the proposed contract changes are permitted under the relevant procurement rules.
