A tender for the Horsham Town Hall project is expected to be awarded next month, with just two companies still in talks with the local council.

The $18.5 million project was due to start construction in August but has been delayed because the tenders came back over budget.

The Horsham council’s technical services director, John Martin, says it is looking for clarification from the community about what it wants to be included in the project.

He says it will take a couple of weeks to finalise the savings proposals.

“We’ve been looking at a range of options to try and trim the costs to get the project within budget and when we come up with a package of works that we think we can afford within the budget, then we’ll present that to the community and hear what response arises from that,” he said.

“Recently the mayor was outlining that we need to consider some changes to the scope in a range of different areas and we hope to have some of that information available to the community within the next couple of weeks before the council makes a decision about what scope might be included in the project.”