City bosses spent £5m on ill-fated Hungate HQ

Today, for the first time, we can reveal how City of York Council racked up a bill of almost £5 million for the whole project, without a brick being laid.

The council withdrew its own planning application last month, following condemnation from conservation groups. Now, after a five-week investigation, The Press has obtained complete details of where the council has already spent money.

Some £830,000 has been paid or pledged to architects RMJM. A further £194,375 has gone to York-based builders Shepherd Construction. And £15,000 has been committed to an arts consultant, to look into suitable works for the building that may now never be built.

The surveyor, WT Partnership, is getting £108,600. Engineering firm Gifford and Partners is receiving £203,000. Project manager Turner Townsend is getting £91,290.

The various firms have been involved in planning the project since winning the key contracts 18 months ago.

Just over £535,000 has been spent on managing the scheme, with most of that going on wages for the “project team”.

Relocating the ambulance station from Dundas Street has cost £1.25 million, and £432,873 has been spent planning the departure from the council’s existing buildings around the city.

Councillors and officials today said it was too soon to say how much of the money had been wasted. That, they said, depends on what ultimately happens.

If a new headquarters similar to that planned is still built at Hungate, much of the money would have been spent anyway. A less likely, but possible scenario, in which the council builds a different building on a different site, would mean much of the money spent so far had been for nothing.

Architects RMJM unveiled their first design for the building in March. Following criticism, it was revised but the new design also proved unpopular.

Neil Hindhaugh, the council’s head of property services, defended the firm’s work.

“They have done what we asked them to do,” he said.

“The fact we have got to a point where English Heritage have changed their mind and said ‘no’ is nobody’s fault in terms of the people we have employed.

“It’s a sad state of affairs we have got to that we find ourselves in this position.”

Asked if the council had set RMJM too tough a challenge, given the size of the site, he said: “possibly”.

He said the council was confident it could fit what it wanted on the land it had, adding: “We would never have gone this far if we thought we would fail.”

How we obtained council account information

The Press obtained complete details of the money spent on Hungate, thanks to the Audit Commission Act 1998.

The law says all public bodies must open their accounts for four weeks a year, giving unparalleled public access to otherwise secret information.

City of York Council’s accounts opened on July 14 – only four days after the council withdrew the planning application for its new headquarters.

We asked for details of all money spent on the project in 2007/08 and received a rough breakdown. On July 27, we asked to see all receipts, contracts, and bills relating to the costs, as permitted under the legislation.

Following discussions between council legal and accommodation staff, and after we advised the council that we had the backing of our lawyers, the authority last week handed over a complete breakdown of how money had been spent on the project – not just for last year, but right back to the project’s inception in 2005. That information was then handed to leading councillors the next day.

Labour leader’s praise for Press

LABOUR leader David Scott today hailed The Press for ensuring details of the £5 million bill were made public.

This newspaper spent five weeks using little known financial laws to obtain the details.

Coun Scott, who had also called for more transparency, said: “It is only thanks to pressure from The Press that these figures have been released rather than being discussed behind closed doors.”

The figures were subsequently presented to the shadow executive and party leaders, but Coun Scott said such detail would ordinarily have been confidential.

He added: “It is clearly welcome news that the council has decided to publish the costs that we have been calling for over the past month. But the real issue in terms of moving forward and public accountability is how much of this figure is actually wasted money? It is important for residents to have confidence in this project and the public deserves to know what finances are involved.”

The shadow executive meets at 3.15pm today to receive an update on the project.

Outside experts could now be brought in, to help save the troubled scheme.

Neil Hindhaugh, who has headed the project, says experts in architecture, planning and communications could be brought in to provide support and advice.

He said lessons had been learnt, adding: “There is clearly a need to demonstrate a more open and inclusive process.”

On the costs, Coun Scott said: “That money has been spent. It depends what happens next, whether that is wasted.”

But he added: “We should be more prudent about spending other people’s money.

“Public art is important and it’s important to support it, but did it have to be spent now?

“The architects are getting a lot of money for a building nobody likes and that has been redesigned twice.”

Mr Hindhaugh said: “It is not possible at this stage to identify how much of these costs are abortive. This can only be determined once a new solution has been chosen.”

Council leader Andrew Waller said: “Officers have been made aware that this is public money throughout the process.

“Clearly we were hopeful of a planning decision in September to develop work on site, and obviously with Shepherd being a local company that would be local jobs.

“In terms of costs, we have tried to keep them down and therefore I am keen that we ensure that as much of the work that has been done is utilised in a new city hall.”

As reported in The Press on Saturday, leading councillors have agreed the new headquarters must be in the city centre rather than an out-of-town site such as Clifton Moor or Monks Cross.

Coun Waller said moving 1,400 staff out of town would damage the city-centre economy and said transport links were focused on bringing people into the centre.

Conservative leader Ian Gillies said: “We need to create something we can deliver on budget and on time, and hopefully that ticks many of the boxes.”

Dave Taylor of the Green Party added: “It depends what happens next as to whether we consider it to have been a terrific waste of money or not. Personally, I think the council should stick to a city-centre site for the benefit of both staff and the citizens of York.”