Business Pointer get the bad news out of the way first.

For the ‘Helm’ to make a profit there needs to be at least 300 customers per week from Dunure itself, added to the revenue from visitors to the centre.

Let’s tease that out.

Firstly, 300 per week is 43 per day. Over an 8 hour day that’s a customer every 11 minutes or so.

That’s one person walking down Kennedy Drive to the ‘Helm’ every 11 minutes, past their neighbour’s house – the neighbour I guess they’re having a cuppa with.

The 300 is expected to be every day of the year, summer and winter. It’s more likely that folks will walk down in summer than winter – twice as likely? So in summer that’s one person every 5¹/₂ minutes walking down Kennedy Drive, past their neighbour’s house.

But it’s more than that – because the ‘Helm’ is likely to be booked at weekends for weddings and events. So we’re more likely looking at 300 visitors per week over 5 days – that’s 60 per day. In summertime we can double the numbers, halve them in wintertime.

I’ve done a wee spreadsheet so you can see for yourself.

Is that what you expect to see? A constant stream of Dunure residents walking down Kennedy Drive and braving the dangerous crossing into the park?

Well, let’s see what’s on offer for them.

Coffee from a coffee machine. Costing £2.00, so not top quality.

Sorry, this is just not going to fly.

Let me quote from the report:

[If] as the basis for this business plan, we estimate 36,295 visitors to the Helm in year 1, spending (say) £2.00 each, then catering revenue would be £72,590

(Page 5)

If you do the sums, then the ‘business plan’ is expecting is £31,200 per year from residents, £41,392 from visitors.

Was that what you were expecting? If the £31,200 doesn’t materialise, what happens to the jobs the project promises?

Take into account that some of our friends and neighbours are elderly, or disabled, or children, and there’s even less of a chance of the numbers stacking up.

Why didn’t Dynamic Dunure pick up on this?
Why didn’t they ask for a new draft report?

There’s a large underestimate of the architects’ fees in the ‘business plan’.

Costs are given to RIBA 3 for the development phase of the ‘Helm’ project, yet they are only give to RIBA 2 for the delivery phase (page 19).

There’s an important difference between RIBA 2 and RIBA 3.

RIBA is the Royal Institute of British Architects.

RIBA Stage 2 is the concept design phase of planning a building.

RIBA Stage 3 is the ‘Spatial Coordination’ stage, a critical phase where the project’s theoretical aspects transition into concrete realities. Where the plugs go and so forth.

Stage 3 demands a high level of expertise and coordination among architects, engineers, and other specialist consultants, embodying the essence of practical and detailed architectural planning.

In other words, Stage 3 plans can be expected to cost the same as Stage 2 again, possibly much more than that.

Stage 2 costs £1,670,000 – how much will it cost to go to Stage 3?

Likewise the costs for the car park and access – Stage 2 costs £490,000 – how much extra for Stage 3?

Similarly, costs for the landscaping: £350,000 to Stage 2.

The fees for ‘the above’ are given as £222,009: how much more will they rise to bring the project up to RIBA Stage 3?

Will it cost the same again – more? – much more? – we just don’t know.

What we do know is that there is a built-in cost overrun to this project.