Welfare facilities at Dover District Council’s grounds maintenance depot have been shut because they cannot be brought up to workplace regulations, leaving crews driving in convoy between Whitfield and Connaught Park every day. Cabinet considered a £150,000 replacement on 7 September.

Dover District Council’s cabinet has been asked to spend up to £150,000 building a grounds maintenance depot in the rear car park of its Whitfield offices, after welfare facilities at the council’s Dover depot were closed on health and safety grounds.

The report went to cabinet on 7 September. The council had not published a decision record at the time of writing.

Why the facilities were closed

The grounds maintenance service, brought back in house in 2017, works from two sites: Connaught Park in Dover and Hamilton Road Cemetery in Deal. The report says both have had minimal investment since. The Dover depot consists of single skin agricultural sheds built at least 50 years ago on a steeply sloping site. The Deal depot uses a prefabricated mess room and shipping containers.

Concerns were raised by the East Kent Audit Partnership, by the parks and open spaces service itself and by the council’s corporate health and safety team. Items needing immediate attention were dealt with from revenue budgets, but those budgets were not enough to bring the welfare facilities at Connaught Park up to the standard required by the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. The facilities were therefore closed.

The report lists what is wrong. Neither depot has showers, so a worker who needs one has to be sent home. Neither has drying facilities, so in wet weather a team member who changes out of damp or soiled clothing at lunchtime has to launder both sets of uniform overnight. The welfare block at Connaught Park was made by converting a single skin agricultural building and, despite a damp course being fitted afterwards, the kitchen area frequently becomes mouldy and has been closed. Chemical and fuel stores at both sites need replacing, the metal store at Deal having deteriorated and the brick one at Connaught Park being poorly ventilated. Several shipping containers at Deal are rusty and no longer watertight. Several garages at Connaught Park are in very poor repair, some without doors and one damaged structurally enough that a new door cannot be fitted.

As an interim measure the Dover and Aylesham teams work out of the Whitfield offices and travel to and from the depot in convoy each day. The report says this does not fix the safety and security problems, costs the service productive time and adds wear and tear to council vehicles.

The options

Officers set out four options. Doing nothing was rejected as leaving the council exposed to safety and security risk, and as demotivating for the team. Investing in the existing depots was put at a minimum of £200,000 and rejected because neither site is big enough or can be extended, welfare facilities would have to be duplicated, and it would still not solve the loading risk on the sloping ground at Connaught Park.

Renting was rejected too. A unit at Whitfield Business Park was investigated at £32,000 a year, well placed next to the council offices, but detailed floor plans showed it was not big enough for all the equipment. No other suitable local unit is available, and the report says that within five years rent alone would cost more than building.

The preferred option is a purpose built facility in the rear car park at Whitfield, estimated at £150,000 from an existing allocation in the council’s medium term financial plan. It would use the shower and toilet facilities already in the main office building and sit under the site’s 24 hour CCTV. The report says the grounds maintenance team has a high level of staff turnover and that a decent centralised depot should help retention.

The parking trade-off

Building on the rear car park would cost the site 12 to 15 parking spaces.

To gauge the impact, the parks team counted free spaces in the main middle car park between 1pm and 2pm on a Monday, a Wednesday and a Friday each week for five weeks. Across all three days the average was 28 spaces free. Fridays flatter that figure: with Friday data removed, the average across Mondays and Wednesdays was 18 free spaces. The upper car park was not surveyed.

Set against that, the proposal removes 12 to 15 spaces from a car park the council’s own survey recorded as having 18 free at lunchtime on Mondays and Wednesdays.

What cabinet was asked to approve

The recommendation was for approval in principle, with authority delegated to the Director of Housing and Place, in consultation with the portfolio holders, to finalise the design and deliver the scheme provided the cost stays within £150,000. If it cannot be delivered for that, a further report comes back to cabinet.

The report was written by Emma-Jane Allen, head of parks, open spaces and countryside. The portfolio holders are Councillor Edward Biggs, deputy leader and portfolio holder for planning, climate change, built and natural environment, and Councillor Lynne Wright, portfolio holder for community and corporate assets. It was classified as an executive key decision.

Sources

Top image: the entrance to Connaught Park, Dover, pictured in 2017. The council’s grounds maintenance depot is on the park site; the depot itself is not shown. Photograph by Pam Fray, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Geograph and Wikimedia Commons.