Shock for councillors as damaged Wellington toilets under-valued 300 per cent

A PUBLIC toilet block in Wellington which was partially demolished when a car crashed into it before Christmas was hugely under-valued.

Town councillors were told in a report this week the Longforth Road toilets were more than 300 per cent under-insured.

The town council bought the building for a token sum about five years ago from the former borough council, which was otherwise going to close it.

Town councillors last autumn were looking at a £145,000 project to remodel or demolish and rebuild the block with two unisex cubicles and an accessible one.

Now, the damage caused by the Christmas car crash has left them looking at razing the site and rebuilding as the only option.

But council clerk Dave Farrow said the toilets had been insured for £85,530.79 when insurers were now saying the figure should have been £290,000.

Mr Farrow said the insurer was only prepared to pay out 30 per cent of the cost of repairs and the council would have to look to recover the balance from the car driver’s insurance company.

He recommended setting up a project sub-committee of four councillors to work with officers to deliver proposals for action on the toilet block.

Mr Farrow estimated the cost of finding a project manager to oversee the work and liaise withinsurers, specialist contractors, and other professionals to create proposal for councillors to consider was likely to be about £18,000.

He said a recruitment process could be followed which would see the project manager appointed in early April, with the toilets remaining closed in the meantime.

Structural engineer Philip Derben, who inspected the toilet block for the town council, said the car impacted the central brickwork pier and passed through it, removing the structural support to the extended roof in front of the main block.

Mr Derben said this removed support to the two 16 feet spanning lintels on either side of the pier resulting in masonry above it dropping and cracking its full length.

There was significant damage to the return walls at each end of the lintels where the car’s impact had lifted and cracked the masonry around the supports.

Mr Derben said: “The central pier is totally demolished and the impact has lifted the roof, resulting in damage to the masonry over the public convenience doors and loss of roof fixings.”

He said the steel doors of the toilet cubicles were also showing signs of impact damage.

Mr Derben said: “The car impact has caused significant damage to the front, which has caused the roof to partially collapse as a result of the removal of a structurally significant central pier.

“The front of the building should be demolished and rebuilt with the end returns walls.

“This should include a complete stripping back of the whole roof and then reconstruction.

“The building in our professional opinion has been badly weakened as a result of the impact and requires substantial remedial work to return it to a condition before the car impact of the central pier.”

Mr Derben also recommended putting a steel bollard in front of the brickwork pier to prevent a similar incident in future.

The issues will be discussed at a meeting of town councillors on Monday.