By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
Mansfield District Council has again extended a 24-hour security contract at a building it owns in London ahead of £20m fire safety repairs getting underway.
The Labour-run authority has continued its agreement with security firm Support Services Group (SSG) Ltd for a further three-and-a-half months.
This is the same firm that’s been on-site since November 2021 after the building, in Bedford Road, Clapham, was found with significant safety issues.
The council bought the building as an investment for £5.95m in January 2017 as a way of diversifying income streams during cuts and austerity.
But investigations in 2018 following the Grenfell Tower disaster found “a number of issues” needed to be addressed.
This included compartmentation issues “inside the walls” which would make it difficult to contain a fire, as well as an absence of fire safety resistance in materials used to construct key escape routes.
The council appointed SSG to secure the building in the wake of the issues coming to light.
The company offers a 24-hour ‘waking watch’ across the building and is instructed to enforce a ‘simultaneous evacuation’ of the entire site if a fire breaks out.
This is in response to a significant shift in the building’s fire safety protocol made in response to the issues being discovered.
Overall, the authority has budgeted around £20m between 2018 and 2025 to bring the issues right.
Repairs will lead to residents in all 40 apartments leaving their homes and being moved into temporary accommodation.
A contract worth £2.2m was signed with London-based estate agency Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) earlier this year and will fund all relocation fees for each household.
Once residents have left, the building is expected to be rebuilt internally with floors, walls and ceilings to be ripped out.
This work was initially expected to get underway in August last year before Lambeth Building Control rejected the council’s application due to a lack of information.
Work was then delayed until May this year before the authority again postponed it until “at least September” due to complexities with the scheme.
These included a contractor still not being appointed and the council not receiving building control consent from Lambeth authorities.
Building control permission is still being negotiated, Mansfield Council confirmed last week, but work is scheduled to start on November 23.
This is expected to lead to large portions of the building being closed off once residents have been moved into temporary housing.
The council says it is yet to provide residents with a concrete date for this work but will publicly confirm this once tenants have been told.
And now the council has officially decided to extend SSG’s service until November when the works begin.
Its contract was initially extended for six months to August 2 earlier this year, costing £126,561.60.
The cost of this extension – lasting 113 days – is not quantified by the council but can be calculated at around £78,000.
Michael Robinson, the council’s strategic director, approved the extension last week alongside plans to procure a new security contract for during the works.
The authority says closing parts of the building “may reduce the number of waking watch staff required”, meaning a separate contract is needed.
The new contractor – which could be SSG if the company applies for the new contract – is to be appointed by November to operate during all periods of remediation.
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In a statement, Andy Abrahams (Lab), Mansfield’s mayor, said: “Mansfield District Council’s priority is always the safety of tenants living in Bedford Road, Clapham.
“On August 2, we will be taking the key decision to go out to procurement for a security contractor who will be responsible for the waking watch and safety measures in the building until remediation works are completed.
“For the safety of residents, we have continued our contract with SSG Support Services Group to allow the security measures in the building for residents to continue whilst we undertake the full procurement exercise.”
