A woeful oversight and miscommunication between Wolverhampton City Council and the Health and Safety Executive is likely to see taxpayers picking up the tab for costly court proceedings.
A WMTPA supporter spotted a story in the Express & Star that reveals how a £40million student village in the city was given planning permission by the authority despite it’s location – right next to a builders merchants (sited there for many years) who store propane gas cylinders and tanks.
Carver’s builders’ merchants has had Hazardous Substances Consent for more than 15years, and though the new 25-storey Victoria Halls falls directly within the ‘blast zone’, local government officials still recommended the project for approval.
Oh dear. The HSE has now launched court action against the city council according to the newspaper article, which cannot be good news for developers, students or – of course – us taxpayers.
Wolverhampton University has allowed students to move into the 750-room building regardless of health and safety fears, as publically funded lawyers crawl all over the paperwork.
This is potentially hugely disruptive, not to mention damaging to the reputation of the city, and we have to wonder just how such a monumental omission came about. No doubt we can look forward to this rumbling on for a good long while yet, with minimal accountability from the council and spiralling costs.