£150k on flattening landmark building
Police bosses have spent more than £150,000 flattening Stafford's historic Baswich House, it has been revealed.
The cost emerged after it was claimed that bulldozing the Victorian home of former Stafford MP Sir Thomas Salt would save taxpayers' cash.
The information has been uncovered by campaigners who fought in vain to save the landmark building, which is situated on Staffordshire Police's current Cannock Road headquarters site. In an email exchange with police authority chief executive Allan Wallis, local historian Beryl Holt was told that the total bill for ongoing demolition work to take down Baswich House, along with several former police houses, came to a total of £155,605.
The charge, to bring down Baswich House along with a two former stores buildings and six former police houses on Baswich House Drive, was made up of £108,640 for the demolition work itself, combined with £38,465 for asbestos removal and £8,500 for the monitoring of asbestos removal.
Berkswich Historical Society chairman Beryl Holt said: "This is public money being used to help out a developer who is going to come along at some time in the future - that could be five or six years' time in the current climate.
"In the meantime, we have been left with a bombsite basically and I am despairing."
Mrs Holt also disputed the £1 million which police bosses had claimed was needed to bring Baswich House back into use. But, police authority chairman and Stafford councillor Mike Poulter insisted the figure was correct and defended the cost of the demolition work
He added land on the current headquarters site needed to be attractive to developers in order to fund Staffordshire Police's move to a new £8 million HQ on Weston Road later this year.
