The district of the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset Council (commonly known as ‘BANES’) wanted to identify and improve the future service delivery capabilities of their Environmental Services and Highways depots. Their local remit covered passenger transport, roads, refuse collection, recycling, parks and street cleaning.

BANES were looking at making potential cost savings of £49m across a four year programme and approached Ameo Professional Services who appointed CMI Synergy as lead consultant to begin that process with a review of their operational depots.

CMI worked alongside service managers from BANES exploring all service-critical requirements and consolidation options. An existing facilities database was established to underpin current operations from which CMI were able to identify potential cost-saving and consolidation opportunities. These were then tested by stakeholders and concluded with a set of preferred options.

Key report recommendations included an option to consolidate existing depots by 50%. By withdrawing from leased facilities and disposing of non-critical sites this option also had the potential to be self-funding. CMI’s report concluded with a series of ‘next-step’ recommendations.

Ameo and CMI were retained to further develop the preferred option into Phase Two to show how the consolidation plan would be managed.