Council wasting £20,000 a month on HGV depot that can’t house trucks

Richard Evans, local democracy reporter

The future of “purpose-built” HGV depot that can’t house trucks and is costing taxpayers £240,000 a year in rent will be discussed at a behind-closed-doors meeting.

Conwy County Council’s finance and resources overview and scrutiny committee will pass a resolution to evict the press and public from the Bodlondeb meeting before discussing the building located on Mochdre Commerce Park.

The contract for the not-fit-for-purpose building started in May 2016, meaning the authority has, to date, spent around £2 million – costing taxpayers around £20,000 a month.

The council is locked into a contract for the multi-million-pound HGV depot until at least 2031, but the structure can’t house the council vehicles it was built for.

The cash-strapped authority, who raised council tax by 9.67% this year whilst cutting front-line service budgets by 10%, is tied into a 35-year lease – with an option of breaking the lease in 2031. Whilst £2m has already been wasted, if Conwy continues to pay the rent until 2031, it will have shelled out around £3.6m in total.

Lease

Whilst the initial lease was taken out with Conygar Investment Company PLC, R.R Sea Strand Limited are now the landlords. The council were unable to use the building for its intended purpose to store its fleet of vehicles as the floor was not strong enough to hold HGVs.

The building was used for the storage of pandemic-related equipment and readied as an emergency temporary morgue during the height of the Covid pandemic. It was later used to store unused PPE and for general storage.

A council spokeswoman said: “The council is not able to comment on a matter that is the subject of ongoing litigation. Members of the finance and resources scrutiny committee will receive an update on Monday (02/09/24).”

Lack of transparency

Aberconwy MS Janet Finch-Saunders said the council had a history of a lack of transparency: “I’m shocked once again to realise Conwy County Council still have interest in a building that is not being used, was never fit for purpose, and has cost the taxpayers millions of pounds.

“I would be interested myself in seeing a copy of the contract. I’m determined to find out exactly what the liability to Conwy taxpayers is. It is a situation that cannot continue, certainly with the council crying poverty and citing it is on the edge of bankruptcy at times.

“We can’t have a situation where they are pouring good money after bad on a building that is not fit for purpose. It doesn’t fulfil any requirement for the local authority. It was a mess from day one, and I would have thought the leader and cabinet would be looking to come out of that contract but not at the cost to taxpayers.”

She also criticised the decision by the council to exclude the press and public from a meeting next week: “Going back to when I was at Conwy County Council (as a councillor), I used to have regular arguments that there needed to be clear audit trails, an absolute accurate line of transparency and accountability.

“Too often they go into private sessions on exempt matters, citing commercial sensitivity, but actually, the only people who should be feeling sensitive about this matter is Conwy County Council. That information should be put out there in the public arena.”

An independent report with Newcastle-based DWF LLP was commissioned by Conwy in 2021. The report was initially not made public but was eventually released following an FOI request, documenting a “lack of leadership, ignored or misunderstood policies, and a lack of accountability”.

At the time, Conwy’s then chief executive Iwan Davies said the decision to buy the building that could not be used for its intended purpose was “highly regrettable”. Councillor Anne McCaffrey was more damning calling it “a shaming catalogue of errors”. Conwy’s finance and resources overview scrutiny committee will meet at Bodlondeb on Monday 2 September.