IF EVER there was a case of Joe Public having to pick up the tab for someone else's bungle, it is the fiasco surrounding Blackburn Town Hall tower block.

Consider the circumstances.

The tower block needed recladding. Tiles were dropping off and it was only a matter of time before one of them connected with a shopper's head.

Rightly, the council decided it had to act and, again quite correctly, called in the experts.

Enter main contractors Sunley-Turriff who took on responsibility for the whole job.

They in turn sub-contracted to other experts who would fit a cradle around the building and to yet more experts who would install the new tiles on it.

And a fine job it looked too. Most of us thought the tower looked fine in its new Y-fronts.

Then the tiles started dropping off again!

It seemed that the experts were not quite so expert.

Those who had fitted the aluminium cradle to which the tiles were fitted had bungled. Indeed the cradle had never worked properly and needed replacing completely. The council looked to the sub-contractors for recompense - but they had gone into receivership.

The bungling did not stop there however. A mistake by consultants called in for advice pushed the repair cost up by £100,000.

Now the total cost of repairs is put at least £420,000 and it looks like the charge payers of Blackburn will have to find the vast majority of the money.

Why?

Sunley-Turriff were the main contractors. They employed the sub standard sub-contractors. They should be liable for the deficiencies of companies that they themselves employed.

But they are now making an offer which, while not revealed by the council, is believed to be far less than the total loss to the public purse.

Lawyers are saying if councillors do not accept this "offer that cannot be refused" they may lose out altogether.

Something smells here, with the council in a cleft stick.

No doubt they will have to accept this offer with clenched teeth but they must learn from the fiasco.

They must make sure that future contracts are so watertight that if there are problems with projects the buck stops with the contractors, not the hard pressed charge payers.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.