'Why the sudden interest in fire risk assessments when the council hasn't done one for 25 years?'

EX-COUNCIL LEADER SAYS AUTHORITY SHOULD 'GET ITS HOUSE IN ORDER'

- By OLIVER PRIDMORE

NOTTINGHAM City Council has been told to “get its house in order” by a former leader.

The authority says it does not have “full records” on fire safety at a historic building it wants to sell.

The Labour council shut down the Lenton Business Centre complex in February after fire risk assessments found a raft of issues last year.

The complex includes the historic Howitt Building, primarily used by the Marcus Garvey Centre to run a day centre and ballroom. The site also includes Lenton Business Centre, a separate building which housed around 70 businesses, plus workshops.

But some of those running the Marcus Garvey Centre claim the council's fire safety concerns were a “pretext” to allow it to sell off the building.

The council previously quoted that over £300,000 was needed for fire safety work, abd said it could not pay for it itself.

The authority has denied it is using fire safety as an excuse to sell the building, despite new documents showing the council does not know when it last conducted a fire risk assessment before last year’s.

Former Nottingham City Council leader John Taylor, a member of the Marcus Garvey Centre Community Association, submitted a Freedom of Information request asking for previous assessments and fire door surveys dating back to 2000.

The council responded by saying it did not hold that information and has now confirmed: “This spans a long period of time, and as such, we don’t have full records to confirm whether fire risk assessments were consistently carried out across all parts of the building.”