Council overspent by £1.6m on fire safety project

Guildford Borough Council overspent by £1.6m on a major fire safety project

A Surrey council has overspent by £1.6m on a major fire safety project after failing to work out how many fire doors needed replacing, it has been revealed.

Assumptions from incomplete data left officers underestimating how many doors needed replacing in Guildford Borough Council's housing stock, according to a report.

It revealed that the council had already spent £4.1m on the scheme – above the original £2.5m contract estimate.

The further expenditure needed to complete the project would bring its total cost to £6.5m, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Council leader Julia McShane labelled the unexpected cost a "slight overspend", but emphasised the importance of fire safety.

The efforts to shore up fire safety follow a self-referral to the regulator of social housing in 2023, which came after the council had admitted it was not fully compliant with building safety standards.

A C3 rating, flagging serious weaknesses in the council's oversight of its housing stock, was issued.

Alongside the new doors, additional blocks and fire safety improvements were added mid-way through the project, increasing costs further.

Despite the overspend, no extra funding is being asked for at this stage, with the costs set to be covered from elsewhere in the capital programme.

Pedro Wrobel, joint chief executive of the council, said: "Whilst it is frustrating we did not catch this before breaching the budget, at the very least, we caught it very shortly afterwards."

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