Mansfield Council appoints contractor for 'intrusive investigation' into London building's fire safety problems

The Labour-run council bought the block of 40 flats, on Bedford Road in Clapham, as an investment in 2017.

It cost the council about £5.95 million at the time, with the hope of income from rent being used to shore up services during periods of austerity.

But in 2018, an independent assessment found serious fire safety problems, meaning the walls, floors and ceilings may need to be ripped out and re-built internally.

This came in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster, which led to more stringent regulations for highrise housing blocks.

The council previously forecast it would spend approximately £19.691m between 2018 and 2025 to fix the issues.

This could remediation work, as well as moving residents in the building into temporary accommodation.

However, a new council report shows spending on the project will stretch beyond this financial year, with around £9.5 million of the overall budget allocated for the upcoming year – which begins in April – instead.

Another £7.5m is then allocated for the following financial year, beginning in April 2026.

It follows the council this week approving a contract with national contractor Willmot Dixon Construction to conduct an “intrusive investigation” into the building over nine months.

That decision was made during a behind-closed-doors meeting at the authority on Monday (January 20).

This will assist the council in putting together an application to Lambeth Building Control, which will be needed for full repairs to take place.

The council has not given a start date for when building works will begin or when they might be completed, but they can’t start without building control consent.

A spokesperson for Mansfield Council said: “We will very shortly be entering into a contract with a national contractor and will be developing a programme when we do so.

“Part of the contract is the contractor undertakes a remediation design and applies for Building Regulation approval.”

The building was bought under a freehold agreement for £5.95 million in 2017, and includes a business space on the ground floor and 40 apartments above, spread across three blocks.

The problems became public in 2022 following an investigation by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which also heard residents inside the building had been living “in limbo” waiting for answers from the authority.

A contract worth £2.2m was signed with estate agency Lambert Smith Hampton in 2023 to assist in moving residents out of their flats – whenever the full works begin.

That included the authority committing to paying all relocation fees and storage costs for tenants and leaseholders so the work could begin.

The council also approved a decision to begin legal action against developers who constructed the building.

Up to £360,000 was approved in legal fees to attempt to recover the costs of the repairs.

A meeting of the Labour administration’s cabinet will take place on Monday, January 27 to discuss the authority’s broader Medium Term Financial Plan – which sets out the council’s budget for the next three years.

This includes the allocation of the £17m to the Clapham project spread across the next two financial years.