Councillor stands by ‘heads must roll’ call over £420K payments after project ‘paused’

SOMERSET Council paid £420,000 towards a failing regeneration project in Glastonbury mere months after telling the public the project had been ‘paused’.

- DANIEL MUMBY Local democracy journalist [e-mail]

The Red Brick Building, located on Morland Road in Glastonbury, has been the subject of significant building work as part of the £23.6m Glastonbury town deal, with the derelict ‘Building C’ being transformed into community events space, offices, and other facilities.

Somerset Council officially ‘paused’ funding for the Life Factory project in January 2024 amid serious concerns being raised about its management, with the South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) delivering a scathing verdict on how the project had been managed in May 2025.

Beckery Construction Company Ltd., the company set up to deliver the £2.89m project, collapsed into liquidation in early-November, with Glastonbury Nub News reporting that it owed more than £686,000 to creditors (including 26 local firms) with just £4,800 of assets.

Auditors Grant Thornton have now revealed that payments continued to be made to the project months after the official ‘pause’ - with Conservative opposition leader Councillor Diogo Rodrigues stating that “heads must roll” in light of the news.

The council has responded that the money was used to pay apprentices and to ensure the rest of the Red Brick Building was watertight so that it could continue to operate.

Reports first surfaced in May 2024 from local residents that “bricklayers, carpenters, roofers, plumbers, joiners and labourers” associated with the project have not been paid “since March”.

The issue reached boiling point at a full council meeting in March 2025, where health and safety consultant Jonathan Wilkins informed councillors that his wife of 35 years, Angela, had taken her own life in light of the stress caused by the project.

Mr Rodrigues (pictured inset, who represents the Bridgwater East and Bawdrip division) raised the issue when the council's executive committee met in Taunton on Wednesday morning last week (December 3).