COUNCILLORS have discussed how to proceed with repairs to leaks in the Assembly Hall’s roof after receiving a quote for over £90,000 for a temporary repair, which was deemed ‘too much money.’
At an extraordinary full town council meeting on Thursday 17th August councillors received a building update report where one local contractor quoted a net cost of £91,896 to carry out temporary repairs to the Assembly Hall roof, which is leaking in several places.
Councillors raised concern with spending this amount on the work, given that plans to upgrade or replace the building are currently being explored. One suggested change is for the Assembly Hall to be combined with the Blue Pool site, which is currently owned by Wiltshire Council, to form an entertainment and museum centre.
Cllr Tom Price said, “We don’t know what is going to happen yet with the Assembly Hall, so spending £90,000 on a roof does seem crazy and it’s in no way something I can support right now.”
Councillors discussed whether any repairs were urgent given the time the roof has been leaking. Cllr Price continued, “It isn’t currently a health and safety hazard. It’s not ideal having drips in the roof, but at the moment we have no health and safety issue. I think we should really be waiting.”
Cllr Ellis advised that there were some recent health and safety concerns due to wet patches when the BBC recently filmed Any Questions? and it was agreed to seek the best way to patch the roof to overcome this.
It was suggested that the council should engage an expert to assess various temporary fix options, each with different potential time-periods of durability, and to provide cost estimates for each of these options. The clerk advised that the council should use the contractor who provided the initial quote for this, although some councillors were concerned that only one contractor submitted a quote.
The council agreed to Cllr Saffi Rabey’s suggestion that they speak to the original contractor about getting through the most urgent repairs and presenting the options about what can be achieved.