THE COST of demolishing the former Bromsgrove District Council House at Burcot Lane could be as high as £750,000 because of the amount of asbestos that needs removing.
The revelation came during a full council meeting on Wednesday (April 26) when Labour leader Coun Luke Mallett criticised the authority for not disclosing the figure earlier.
But Bromsgrove District Council leader Coun Geoff Denaro said the £750,000 was the ‘worst case scenario’ and the authority would be looking to negate that cost, for example by working with an organisation interested in the land.
Coun Mallett, also standing as a Labour candidate in the forthcoming Worcestershire County Council election, said: “It is deeply troubling a decision was made to move to Parkside, at a huge cost to the taxpayer, based on a total absence of honesty or consideration of the real costs of exiting from the old Council House or indeed the running costs of keeping the building empty.
“The real profit from selling the land and old Council House could be next to nothing as a result of this failure by the Conservative cabinet.”
He called the move to Parkside a ‘vanity white elephant project’, adding hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money was potentially going to be wasted. He claimed by saving the cash from the Parkside move and the amount it could cost to demolish the former Council House, the old building could have been refurbished and a new sports hall provided at the leisure centre.
He concluded by calling for the matter to be referred to the Local Government Ombudsman for an investigation.
Coun Geoff Denaro said the reaction from Coun Mallett was premature as the council had still not decided what it was going to do with the site.
“Our officers are busy working hard, looking at what could be done with Burcot Lane and the best ways to mitigate any incurred expenditure.
“There will be a paper coming out about the Burcot Lane site in the next few weeks and it is then when we will sit down and look at all the options available to us.
“We have said before, rather than sell the land we may want to utilise it so it brings in a steady income over time, which could far outweigh the costs of demolition.”
The council came under fire in February when it was revealed the empty building at Burcot Lane had cost £126,000-a-year while it lay dormant and unoccupied.
Coun Denaro said in response a proportion of that figure was business rates which the authority would get back from central government.
