Admin blunder sees council spend another £500k on fire doors
HOUSING chiefs in Kirklees are spending more than half a million pounds to replace fire doors in hundreds of high-rise flats for the second time because crucial safety certificates were not provided.
The “second spend” emerged at a recent scrutiny meeting when housing staff said the appropriate documents had not been supplied.
Eric Hughes, the council’s head of business assurance and transformation, said it was “a national issue”.
But one Conservative asked: “How can you lose essential paperwork?”
And one Lib Dem said the “avoidable” spending was a direct result of unreliable record-keeping and would be a “drag” on resources.
The administrative blunder means fire doors that were installed just seven years ago during one multi-million pound tower block facelift will now be removed.
The council also faces the same work in two other high-rise blocks that are earmarked for demolition.
The costly gaffe means Homes & Neighbourhoods, which was formerly the arms-length management organisation Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing, will pay for the work from its revenue account largely made up of tenants’ rents.
The body was brought back inhouse in April. It manages and maintains 21,000 properties including the high-rise blocks Holme Park Court and Bishops Court, in Berry Brow, Buxton House in Huddersfield town centre and Harold Wilson Court, on the ring road in Huddersfield.
The two Berry Brow buildings are to be bulldozed and replaced with low-rise housing in a plan that will take seven years. Residents will be moved out – or “decanted” – into alternative accommodation.
Buxton House will be refurbished as will 50-year-old Harold Wilson Court, which underwent a £3.7m facelift in 2014.
The entire will
£57m.
Politicians support the moves to keep residents safe, in a bid to avoid a “Grenfell in Kirklees” – a reference to the blaze at Grenfell Tower in West London on June 14, 2017, which claimed 72 lives. Speaking last month at a meeting of the council’s Economy and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Panel Clr Martyn Bolt (Con, Mirfield) said: “The doors were replaced a while ago but as I understand programme cost it nobody had the receipts to clarify. That’s very strange: that we can’t track down the purchase and quality of doors for flats. It doesn’t reflect well.”
In response Mr Hughes said: “Lots of previous companies supplied doors saying that they were [appropriately] certificated but then did not supply those certificates.
“That’s where we’ve fallen down as have other providers, I’m afraid. Unfortunately we are not alone in this. This is a national issue.”
Compliance governance and oversight was among 48 recommendations made by an independent consultant who carried out a review earlier this year.
That independent report has not been released or made public.
A Freedom of Information request for the report is also overdue.
An official comment requested from the council on how the issue had arisen has not yet been made, despite multiple requests to do so.