Council quizzed over spiralling costs for children’s residential care homes

Elgan Hearn, local democracy reporter

Councillors have asked for an explanation of how the cost of converting two houses into children’s residential care homes has spiralled to nearly £1 million.

In March 2023 planning permission was given by Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Planning committee to allow the authority to turn two detached houses, off Picton Road in Dukestown, into care homes for up to four youngsters.

£1 million

The council had bought the properties known as Madison House and Mons Calpe with a Welsh Government grant worth £1 million.

At a meeting of the council’s People scrutiny committee on Tuesday, November 12 councillors received a report outlining that refurbishing the properties is expected to go up to £986,000.

The cost had originally been budgeted as £867,000, with this now taking the overall costs close to £2 million. The report explained that the properties had been found to be: “of poor build quality, requiring significant work on existing structures, pillars, flooring and joists.”

Labour’s Cllr Sonia Behr said she was “still struggling” to come to terms with the costs of refurbishing the homes.

Cllr Behr: “I’m a bit concerned that a lot of work had to be done because the houses were of poor build quality and the joists, and all sorts of other work needed to be done.

“Houses of £450,000 each in Blaenau Gwent should not be of such poor build quality that a lot of basic work needs to be done.

“I wonder what surveys were done initially.”

Costs

Interim director of social services Alyson Hoskins explained that neither she nor children’s services manager Loredana Moruz who was also at the meeting, were “best placed” to explain the spiralling costs of the project to councillors.

Ms Hoskins said: “”The assets were procured corporately. I’m sure we can go back to our tech services colleagues with the points you have raised.

“Structural surveys were done prior to acquiring the buildings. Tech services could give you more information on what was discovered subsequently when more in depth work started on the properties.”

Cllr Behr said she would welcome a further report.

Non-aligned Cllr George Humphreys: “It would have been cheaper to build from scratch and it’s cost a lot of money that the authority hasn’t got.”

Ms Hoskyns said: “Just to confirm, the funding around the purchase and refurbishment is all Welsh Government funding, it doesn’t come out of the local authority capital budget.”

Cllr Behr said: “It doesn’t matter if it comes from the Welsh Government or local authority it’s public money.”

It was agreed that the committee would receive a further update to explain the problems with the residential homes refurbishment.