Council spends £1m to restore flood-damaged files

West Sussex County Council offices in Durban House, Bognor Regis, flooded in October

A council is to spend more than £1million to restore 3,000 boxes of documents which were damaged in a storm.

West Sussex County Council (WSCC) said offices at Durban House flooded when Storm Ciarán battered Bognor Regis in October.

A spokesman for WSCC said the flood had a "severe impact on the records and service operations".

Thousands of files from areas such as children’s services, adult social care, highways, planning and fire and rescue were affected, the authority added.

On Tuesday, Duncan Crow, cabinet member for community support, fire and rescue, approved a contract worth £1,005,625 with Harwell Document Restoration Services.

Parts of Bognor Regis were under water more than a week after Storm Ciarán

The cost will form part of a wider insurance claim for the building, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

A WSCC spokesman said all the records on the lowest shelves were damaged and the mobile racking was compromised.

“Records management service staff activated their emergency plan to rescue as many boxes as possible and called in Harwell Restoration under our priority user agreement," the spokesman added.