Guildford Borough Council has approved an additional £2.4 million to complete its fire door replacement programme across council-owned housing.

To date, the council has already spent £4.1 million on the project, significantly exceeding the original £2.5 million contract estimate and even going beyond the £3.6 million budget originally set aside.

According to documents reviewed by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), over 960 fire doors are still due for replacement within the borough’s housing stock.

Council Leader Julia McShane, a Liberal Democrat, said she “will not rest” until residents receive the best possible service, following “decades of failure.” The additional funding was approved at a council meeting on Wednesday, bringing the total projected spend to £6.5 million.

Ms McShane stated that the project had been “hampered by years of neglect and poor record keeping under the previous Conservative council leadership,” adding: “The depth of their neglect of the housing service is such that it will take more time to find everything that needs to be put right.”

Her remarks sparked strong criticism from Conservative councillor Bob Hughes (Tillingbourne), who said: “It is an extraordinary thing when the executive member, who presumably signed this off because it was under her watch, blames the Conservatives.”

According to the council, £800,000 of the additional funding is already committed to orders that have been placed and are in manufacture. The remaining £1.6 million is required to complete the replacement of all outstanding fire doors.

Earlier reports from the LDRS revealed the council had overspent by £1.6 million on the fire safety project. The overspend stemmed from reliance on incomplete data, which led officers to underestimate the number of doors requiring replacement.

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