Another council blunder costs South Ayrshire taxpayer

Mar 15 2013 by Stuart Wilson, Ayrshire Post

tower

Bullet proof glass was ordered for one of Ayr’s most historic Listed buildings.

Now the taxpayer is set to pick up a £250,000 tab for the council blunder.

Red-faced bosses were forced to kick architects off the job at the Wallace Tower.

And the project, to re-open the site as a customer service centre, has been thrown into chaos.

The Post can reveal that the firm working on the building were turfed off the job amid “concerns regarding performance”.

It comes just a week after the council agreed a £200,000 pay-off with its chief executive, David Anderson, after he faced similar claims.

Contractor LBG Waterston was working to renovate the famous Tower and re-open it as a “one-stop shop” for the council.

Four other centres were successfully designed and opened before Christmas in Troon, Prestwick, Girvan and Maybole.

But those were done by another architect – and the council chose a different firm for the job in Ayr.

Now they’ve gone cap in hand to the original contractor, Munro Architects, to ask if they’ll recover damage done at the Wallace Tower.

One town centre trader, who works close to the Tower, told the Post: “Apparently all sorts of expensive items were ordered and sent back because they wouldn’t fit or go with the design.

“As taxpayers we’re struggling to keep our heads above water, yet we have a hypocritical council wasting our money like this.”

A council insider claims suspicion was raised after strange items, such as bullet proof glass, were ordered for the Tower.

Now an extra £250,000 will be taken from the town’s Common Good Fund to rescue the project.

The council’s head of property, Jim McQuillan, confirmed a salvage mission on the job.

He said: “Thanks to our robust monitoring processes, concerns regarding the performance of the architects originally employed on the Wallace Tower project to create a new flagship customer service centre were identified and appropriate action taken.

“As a result, we have now replaced the architects and provision has been made for additional funding from the Ayr Common Good capital fund to ensure the successful delivery of this project.”

He added that the Wallace Tower site would now open behind schedule “later this year”.