Council aiming to buy Harborne Clock Tower <b>scaffolding</b> as rent <b>...</b>

The cost to Birmingham City Council of hiring scaffolding to protect Harborne Clock Tower has topped £700,000 in six months.

With no sign of anyone wanting to purchase the crumbling building, the council is now trying to buy the scaffolding which it is renting for £12,151 a week.

The 130-year-old clock tower was used for adult education classes and has been closed since July 2010 after a survey revealed it was structurally unsafe due to the council’s failure to undertake maintenance and repairs over many years.

Dangerous items of masonry have been removed in recent weeks and a decision has been taken to keep the scaffolding in place to protect the public.

The cost of protecting the clock tower, which is being met from the education budget, has angered community activists, who are questioning whether it is necessary to spend so much money on scaffolding at a time when public services are facing huge financial cuts.

The Edgbaston constituency committee is conducting a consultation exercise into the future of the historic building and there are hopes that it may be bought by a local charity, renovated, and eventually brought back into use as a community centre.

But it emerged at a city council meeting last week that the local authority is yet to put the building on the market.

Adults and communities cabinet member Sue Anderson said the clock tower had been declared surplus to requirements, but she gave no indication of how long the scaffolding would have to remain in place or the likely total cost to the public purse.

Coun Anderson (Lib Dem Sheldon) added: “Assuming there is no internal council interest in appropriating the premises it is intended to bring the building to the open market.

“It is expected that any offers received will be subject to some form of conditionality, for example a planning consent, and therefore it will take a period of time to complete a disposal.

“Based on this situation, the directorate is progressing the purchase of the scaffolding and a report is being presented to this month’s cabinet committee.”

Money raised from selling the building will be ploughed back into the adult education budget, Coun Anderson promised.

Harborne resident Harry Takhar, founder of the Impact Party, described the £700,000 cost of the scaffolding as “scandalous”.

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Synergy Aluminium Scaffolding Tower

£400000 <b>scaffolding</b> bill for Harborne&#39;s Clock Tower - West <b>...</b>

Dec 24 2010 by Jane Tyler

Birmingham City Council has been criticised for spending £400,000 on scaffolding around a crumbling building which it may sell.

For the last nine months the authority has been paying an outside contractor to provide scaffolding for the Clock Tower in Harborne.

The money is coming from the Adults and Communities budget – one of the departments which is facing the toughest cuts in next year’s spending review.

The 130-year-old Grade II-listed building is run by the Adults and Communities Directorate which has been told it is the department which will bear the brunt of the massive cutbacks in April.

Since the 1960s, the Clock Tower has been used as an adult education centre, but it closed in July when a survey revealed it was structurally unsafe due to years of neglect on the maintenance and repair programme.

In March the council was forced to put up scaffolding when slates starting falling from the roof onto the pavement below.

More than 100 adult education classes held at the Clock Tower have been transferred to other sites in south Birmingham.

But since then – faced with a massive repair bill and a need to sell off assets to plug the black hole in its finances – the council has decided to put the building up for sale. But there will be a condition that the new owner retains it for community use.

When the cost of the scaffolding was revealed during a meeting of Harborne ward committee, residents were shocked and questioned the amount.

Derrick Clarke, a conservation architect and a member of the Harborne Society, said he feared the council had been overcharged.

“I have recently worked on a project to renovate the National Trust’s Hanbury Hall in Worcestershire – a much larger building – where the total scaffolding bill for the whole year was £650,000,” he said.

“How can it cost £400,000 to put scaffolding around the Clock Tower?”

Another resident Harry Takhar said: “The adults and communities budget is paying out £60,000 per month – who authorised this uncompetitive charge?

“I have been told by a scaffolding firm that the cost would be £45,000 set-up costs for 14 weeks and then £2,200 per month thereafter – considerably cheaper than what the council is paying.”

He also asked why the council did not take the advice given to it free of charge earlier in the year by Mr Clarke, an expert in such matters.

Council leader and Harborne councillor Mike Whitby defended the cost, saying the process for hiring the scaffolding had gone through the usual competitive tendering procedure.

He also pledged that the Clock Tower would remain a community building and would not be knocked down.

“The issue of ownership is flexible – the days when the public sector can manage a building ad infinitum are gone,” he said.

The community consultation on the Clock Tower’s future will run until February 11. Members of the public are invited to have their say via forms available in Harborne Library.

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Synergy Aluminium Scaffolding Tower