Barnet Council to Spend £770,136 on Essential Fire Safety Repairs at Colindale Office
Barnet Council is set to allocate £770,136 for critical fire safety repairs at its Colindale Office. The funds will cover the procurement of a multidisciplinary client monitoring team and fire engineering support to address significant latent defects within the building.
The remediation programme is essential to ensure the Colindale Office complies with current fire safety legislation, building regulations, and approved design standards. Works are anticipated to commence in November 2026 and are expected to take approximately 12 to 18 months to complete.
During the remediation period, the council plans to manage operations by relocating staff and services within the building. When each floor is being worked on, it will almost certainly be the case that we won't be able to occupy that floor at that time,
a council spokesperson explained. So we're going to work through a process of moving people around the building. We've retained some spare space that we were originally going to rent out. So we've retained that spare space so that we've got capacity to move people around the building and continue with council operations.
The approved expenditure includes £245,256 for project management services, £144,000 for the retention of existing property director and technical advisor roles to ensure continuity and project knowledge, and £260,880 for specialist fire engineering advice and clerk of works services. An additional £120,000 has been allocated for expert consultants to support mechanical and electrical investigations and external wall remediation.
Councillor Barry Rawlings, Leader of the Council, emphasised the non-discretionary nature of this expenditure, stating it is vital for ensuring the safety of staff and building users. The council is also pursuing legal action to recover costs from the original contractor, Gulliford Tri. While the contractor is reportedly not shirking responsibility, the process of claiming back eligible costs is expected to be lengthy.
Councillor Sara Conway commended the Community Safety team for their efforts on this long-standing concern.
This decision was discussed at the Cabinet meeting on 12th October 2026, as detailed in the Public reports pack.
