Local councillor Hamish Pollock has asked if some repairs can be made at the Ecology Centre Building (Old Rectory). Jill, Alan and Hamish have since been told that a stock condition survey of the Ecology Centre was carried out in 2011 (they are done on a 5-year cycle).

The overall comment on the condition was that it was satisfactory but certain works were identified to the building. Overall these would cost around £32K, and are primarily work to the roof gutters, flashings, external walls and windows and internal decorations. About a third of the costs were associated with the internal decorations.

The regime for the maintenance of Council buildings generally is firstly to carry out works that ensure the health and safety of users and occupiers. This is carried out on both a proactive and reactive basis, depending on severity of the problem. However, every building has as a minimum, a scheduled annual inspection and service visit to service all mechanical and electrical installations that require it. For larger pieces of work, there is a capital budget – currently £800k, for all operational buildings to carry out planned maintenance work. The current year’s budget was agreed by the S & R committee on the 18 March.

Unfortunately, the relatively small size of the budget means that higher priority work are the ones that are funded from this budget, and looking at our forward plan, the Ecology Centre is not on the projects scheduled over the next 4 years. However, the property department of the council will ask for the building to re-inspected by staff to ascertain whether the condition has deteriorated significantly since the stock condition survey was carried out to warrant it being placed on a higher priority. 

The Ecology Centre itself does not have a dedicated responsive repairs budget but any such works are paid for by the Environmental Sustainability Team, and last year, around £2.5k of responsive repairs was carried out to the building. 

Council officers are not aware of any bids for external funding for repair work to the building. From their experience, they tell us that funding is hardly ever provided by bodies like the Heritage Lottery Fund to Local Authorities for the type of work required to the Ecology Centre.

Cllr. Hamish Pollock is currently liaising with the committee of the Friends of Sutton Ecology Centre as to any issues that can be sorted out with regards to maintenance and management of the Ecology Centre Grounds.