But current forecasts indicate that the works will remain within budget.
The committee told the Guernsey Press last week that it was unable to comment on the latest timetable and costs while tenders for the project were still open.
But in the States yesterday Education president Andrea Dudley-Owen said that an undisclosed portion of the works would be delayed until after the final group of students from La Mare de Carteret had moved to Les Varendes in September to complete the merger of the two schools.
‘I can confirm that the States is currently considering tender returns and is likely to enter into contract for a significant proportion of the works this summer,’ she said.
‘Where the works will have to take place later in the year, we have received assurances that they can take place without material impact on the delivery of education in the 11-16 school.’
Deputy Dudley-Owen said that maintenance works at Les Varendes were ‘progressing well and on budget’. Delays would be to works required ‘to ready the site for a larger 11-16 school in September’ and allow about 130 staff from the Education Office and other services to move in when the sixth form centre is moved to La Mare de Carteret in the summer. She intended to provide more details ‘in due course’.
She added that some of the space currently used mainly by the sixth form centre – such as independent study areas and music facilities – was not required for offices and would be used by the high school.
In reply to a question from Deputy Aidan Matthews, who is among a group of States members who would like to see the sixth form centre return to Les Varendes at some point, Deputy Dudley-Owen said that much of the space which officials were moving into would be ‘easily reversible’.
Education initially hoped to build a new sixth form centre at Les Ozouets, next to The Guernsey Institute, which is currently under construction, but that plan was kicked into touch when the States pared back funding for capital projects, and Deputy Dudley-Owen said her committee was now having to ‘deal practically with the hand we have been dealt’.
Education still hopes that a new sixth form centre and sports facilities will be built at Les Ozouets by 2029, although it recently admitted that it now expected the project to cost up to £50m. – twice as much as previously estimated, and Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez asked about contingency planning if the sixth form centre had to remain at La Mare de Carteret beyond that point.
‘The sixth form needs to have a permanent home and I hope the next States is going to be able almost immediately to provide funding for the building of the sixth form as originally planned on the Les Ozouets campus so that no further thought needs to be put into a longer-term use of La Mare de Carteret which ultimately would not be the best use of taxpayers’ money,’ said Deputy Dudley-Owen.
Deputy Victoria Oliver wondered if the committee had considered retaining the sixth form centre at Les Varendes for the time being, but Deputy Dudley-Owen claimed there would be a shortfall of teaching space once more students had moved into the 11-16 part of the school and that putting that right would be more expensive than operating the sixth form centre from La Mare de Carteret.
Works were carried out last summer to repurpose La Mare de Carteret for sixth form studies and more will be undertaken this summer.
Deputy Dudley-Owen said they would be completed ‘within the allocated budget’.
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