Stop the neglect! Ban public bodies from owning buildings!

I was alarmed to hear on the radio today that the Government has postponed taking any decisions about the repair and restoration of the Houses of Parliament until 2020.   This has alarmed those who work in the Palace of Westminster and believe that the need to act to preserve the ageing fabric of the building is very urgent.

Once again it is hard to escape the view, stated before on this site, that public bodies should not be allowed to own buildings because they never look after them properly.

I well recall sitting in the chamber at Babergh while water poured through the leaking roof of the council chamber into strategically placed buckets during council meetings.  Belle View House, a council owned property in Sudbury,  was in the news once again last week as vandals took advantage of its abandonned and unguarded state.  This has done more damage to what was already a sadly neglected Victorian villa.   It is good to see that Sudbury Town Hall is having some much needed work done, but the fact that the extent of the repairs is greater than originally thought implies that attention should have been paid to the building at an earlier date.

The excuse for delay in all these instances will,no doubt, have been lack of money.  However the truth is that public bodies will always manage to find more interesting ways of spending their money than boring old renovation work.  They only spring to life when the need for action is well overdue.   Clearly those in power have never heard that a stitch in time really does save nine.