Orpington's Blenheim Children and Family Centre gets an 18-month, £4.5m rebuild from February 2027. Age Concern's day centre and the contact centres move in.

Bromley Council is about to go looking for a builder for its Blenheim Children and Family Centre in Orpington. The job is worth an estimated £4.5m and is expected to take 18 months on site, starting in February 2027.

The refurbished and extended building on Blenheim Road will take in three services that work from elsewhere today. Age Concern’s Saxon Day Centre will move from Lych Gate Road. The council’s two children’s contact centres, at the Saxon Centre and at Royston in Beckenham, will be consolidated there too.

The plan is set out in report HPR2026/029ID, published on 23 September (Bromley Council, decision record). It asks the Portfolio Holder for Renewal, Recreation and Housing, Councillor Yvonne Bear, to approve going out to tender. The decision is listed as due not before 30 September.

What the £4.5m buys

The estimated contract value is £4,505,183 (the report, PDF). The council’s Gateway 1 procurement paper says the works have been fully designed and specified by its consultants (Appendix A, PDF). They include:

  • an extension and remodel of the west wing, to make a stand-alone facility that will be leased to Age Concern
  • remodelling of the west and north-west wings for the contact centre service, and replacement space for what the children and family centre loses
  • full repair of the building fabric across the rest of the site
  • new roofing, windows and external doors throughout
  • new flooring, redecoration and a new heating installation
  • upgraded lighting, electrics and fire alarm, plus an IT upgrade
  • external works

The money comes from two existing capital budgets in the council’s property review programme. The children and family centres budget stands at £7.6m, with £533,000 spent so far. The adult day centres budget stands at £12.8m, with £772,000 spent. The council’s Spend Control Panel still has to approve the spend before a contract is awarded.

The timetable

The Gateway paper sets out the milestones the council is working to:

  • 5 October to 20 November 2026: seven-week tender period
  • 23 November to 18 December 2026: tender evaluation
  • 6 January 2027: approval to award the contract
  • 18 January to 12 February 2027: contractor mobilisation
  • 15 February 2027: works start on site
  • 30 June 2028: works complete, on the milestone table

One detail does not line up. The same paper’s contract summary gives the 18-month core term as 15 February 2027 to 31 July 2028, a month later than the milestone table. A 12-month defects period then runs to 31 July 2029. Either way, the building is a construction site for the whole of the 2027/28 school year.

Timeline for the Blenheim Children and Family Centre refurbishment: 23 September 2026 report published; decision due not before 30 September; tender period 5 October to 20 November 2026; contract award 6 January 2027; works start on site 15 February 2027; works complete 30 June 2028 on the milestone table, 31 July 2028 on the contract summary; defects period to 31 July 2029
Graphic by Bromley Online, from the council's Gateway 1 procurement paper for the Blenheim works.
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The report says the timescales did not allow the usual pre-decision scrutiny by councillors, whose next scheduled meeting is in November. It will instead be circulated to the Executive, Resources and Contracts scrutiny committee as a “minded to” decision. Call-in applies. Ward councillors for Orpington have been consulted and “have confirmed they are supportive of the scheme”.

Why the services are moving

This is the Orpington end of a decision the council’s Executive took on 22 January 2025, in its Extended Operational Property Review (Executive agenda, item 133). That review declared the Saxon Centre on Lych Gate Road and the Royston Contact Centre on Kent House Road, Beckenham, surplus to requirements, along with eight other sites (the January 2025 report, PDF). It named Blenheim as one of two sites in the borough with the space to absorb other services. The other is Kentwood in Penge, which is taking the Poverest adult education service.

The January 2025 report is blunt about the Saxon Centre’s condition. It says the building “requires £1m of repairs”. Age Concern, which runs the day centre there, was “apprehensive about signing a long lease agreement and about the impact of a closure for repair work on their service”. Blenheim is 1.1 miles away. The report’s answer was a small extension at Blenheim so that Age Concern could move without a break in its service.

The contact centre service was already drifting to Blenheim. The same report says some sessions were being run from the Blenheim building “due to the poor condition of the Saxon Centre”. The Royston centre in Beckenham is 10.2 miles from Blenheim, so the council proposes a hub and spoke model, with rooms in other council buildings used to keep access across the borough. Community Vision in Penge, 0.9 miles from Royston, is named as one of those.

The new paper confirms Age Concern has been involved in designing its wing and “have entered into an Agreement for Lease based on the current plans”.

The three services today

  • Blenheim Children and Family Centre, Blenheim Road, BR6 9BH, is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and run by the Bromley Children Project (Bromley Council directory). The council’s paper puts its footfall at over 18,000 in 2024/25 and expects a similar number after the works.
  • Saxon Day Centre, Lych Gate Road, BR6 0TJ, is run by Age Concern Orpington and District. Its own site says it opened as a youth centre in 1982, has offered day care for older people for over 40 years, opens Monday to Friday, and charges between £8.60 and £12.60 an hour depending on the support needed (Saxon Day Centre). Its Memory Lane dementia unit dates from 2015 (our story).
  • Children’s contact centres at the Saxon Centre, Lych Gate Road, and at 298 Kent House Road, Beckenham, provide supervised contact between children and their families. Orpington opens 10am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 5pm at weekends; Royston opens 10am to 6pm on weekdays (Bromley Council, contact centre service).

The question the report does not answer

Blenheim is one of the four Family Hub localities the Executive endorsed on 16 September, which are meant to be the anchors of children’s services from April 2027 (our report on the four hubs). The works on the building start in February 2027 and, on the council’s own numbers, last until the summer of 2028.

The procurement paper manages the disruption risk with “a full decanted site so that there is no service disruption”. In plain terms, everyone moves out while the builders are in. Where the Blenheim centre’s 18,000 visits a year go for those 18 months, and where the contact sessions already running there will be held, is not stated in either document. We have not seen an operational plan for the decant and will ask for one.

How the contract will be let

The council has chosen a single-stage open procedure under the Procurement Act 2023, with a tender notice on the government’s Find a Tender service. The paper says this is the quickest route to market and lets local firms bid that are not all on one framework. Bids are scored 60 per cent on price and 40 per cent on quality, with social value worth 10 per cent of the quality score. The council expects bidders to have a turnover of around £10m or more, and will require a 10 per cent bond or a parent company guarantee. The contract form is the JCT Intermediate Building Contract with a contractor’s design portion, priced as a fixed lump sum with a small number of provisional sums.

What it means for you

  • If you use the Blenheim centre: the building is due to be emptied for the works from mid-February 2027 until at least June 2028. Ask the centre on 01689 831193 where sessions will run in that period. We will report the decant plan when the council publishes one.
  • If a relative attends the Saxon Day Centre: the service is planned to carry on at Lych Gate Road until its new wing at Blenheim is ready. The January 2025 report was explicit that Age Concern should not face a break in service. Nothing changes this year.
  • If you have supervised contact at Royston or the Saxon Centre: both sites are on the council’s surplus list, but neither closes until the Blenheim works are done. The council says it will keep rooms in other buildings, including Community Vision in Penge, so that contact does not all move to Orpington.
  • If you run a building firm: the tender is due to open on 5 October and close on 20 November 2026 on Find a Tender, with a procurement specific questionnaire to sift bids. Financial standing of at least twice the works value is a minimum condition.
  • If you want to object or comment: this is a Portfolio Holder decision, not a planning application, so there is no public consultation on the procurement. The decision can be called in by councillors after it is made. Any planning permission the extension needs will appear on the council’s planning register.

This report describes what the council’s published documents say on 25 September 2026. The decision had not been recorded as made when we checked.

Sources