Another Huge Maintenance Bill for the People of Dundee

As ​Labour's City Development spokesperson on Dundee City Council, I was shocked at yet another huge building maintenance bill for the people of Dundee.  A report to Monday evening's City Development Committee showed that up to £1.2 million will have to be spent on repairs at Dundee House.  This recent spate of building maintenance issues including over £4 million for repairs at Olympia and over £4 million to replace botched repairs to roofs.  I put forward an amendment calling for an independent report to be commissioned into building maintenance across the council which would have been tasked to ensure that the correct resources were being deployed on building maintenance on issues like personnel, processes or budgets.

There is a very unwelcome pattern emerging here.   In a few short months we are approaching a figure of £10 million for repairs that seem to be to say the least out of the ordinary.  What else could be done with that money?

 

Given the report that went before committee on Monday evening about repairs at Dundee House, given the ongoing issue at Olympia and the issues regarding the roof repairs which have all come to light in the last few months I thought that there was is a need for an independent review of repairs and maintenance of buildings.

 

I was disappointed that the SNP Administration and their Alba and Independent supporters did not see a problem with building maintenance and voted against an independent report.  These councillors must be very confident that Dundee has just been unlucky in this £10 million losing streak.

I believe that councillors need to know that property maintenance is being done properly.  It looks like that might not be the case and as councillors we have a duty to get to the bottom of it.

 

We need to ask are the proper resources there in terms of personnel, processes and resources?

 

We cannot sit back and wait on the next bill to come our way.  This committee should have been proactive in making sure that the city’s resources are being looked after properly.

 

The people of Dundee are facing a cost of living crisis, the Council Tax is going up and a substantial part of that increase will go to pay for what looks like avoidable maintenance problems.  This is not good enough.

 

My amendment was designed to help the council.  It was designed to ensure that we can have confidence that best practice is followed and hopefully a reassurance that these problems will not happen in the future.

Since my amendment was voted down I feel duty bound to raise my concerns about building maintenance and the eye-watering costs to the people of Dundee with the council's external auditors.

The people of Dundee deserve answers.