INVERCLYDE’S taxpayers WILL foot a £1m bill for costs associated with what has been branded in a court ruling as a ‘flawed’ council strategy on Clune Park.

Municipal Buildings bosses – who have lost two legal cases over a bid to bulldoze the privately-owned housing scheme – previously tried to discredit the figure.

But the Telegraph can today confirm that Inverclyde Council has already spent nearly £920,000 on litigation and other expenses in support of its heavily criticised plan.

This disclosure – obtained by the Tele using Freedom of Information laws – emerged just weeks after the cash-strapped local authority attempted to rubbish the million-pound costs figure late last year.

Sources close to the long-running property wrangle had told the Telegraph of an accumulation of large expenses as the council fought in vain at Greenock Sheriff Court to keep disputed demolition orders in place.

A strongly-worded statement issued by the council in November declared that we had ‘presented unnamed sources opinion as fact without a single piece of evidence to support it’.

But the local authority’s own records show that nearly six years after its Clune Park action plan was approved, the amount of public cash spent on it currently stands at £919,964.

Meanwhile, the rundown 430-flat Clune Park scheme – described as a ‘festering wound’ by the local authority – remains standing with still no resolution in sight.

The catalogue of council spending includes more than £300,000 under the heading of ‘external legal and court fees’, incurred as a result of its string of legal battles with the property owners.

Nearly £60,000 has gone on fees to architects, engineers and surveyors, including a ‘walk-round’ inspection report that was used to bolster the council’s push for demolition –and which got the method of Clune Park’s roof construction wrong.

Sheriff Derek Hamilton, who ruled against the council in the legal cases, described the evidence of report author, David Turnbull, as ‘unscientific, speculative and selective’. 

Mr Turnbull, who was a partner with Greenock structural engineering consultancy ATK, compiled two documents which were relied upon by the council to condemn Clune Park.

The council – which agreed back in May 2011 to regenerate the area – had argued that the estate was beyond economic repair, had to be torn down and was structurally unstable.

However, its case was undermined by Mr Turnbull himself who stated in court that the buildings would be safe for up to a further 10 years.

Lawyers for landlords and owner occupiers triumphed 
following lengthy legal proceedings, with the council ultimately being ordered to pay their expenses of more than £200,000.

Sheriff Hamilton wrote in his report: “I am satisfied that there was no proper basis for the Defender’s (council’s) decision to serve demolition orders in respect of the appeal properties.”

Now Councillor David Wilson, whose ward area takes in Clune Park, is urging his elected colleagues to search for a new way to resolve the issue.

He told the Telegraph: “This is taxpayers’ money and I think that taxpayers have every right, at this level of expenditure, to expect some success. Something does need to be done about Clune Park, but I think the council needs to draw breath.

“It needs to have a cold, hard look at the options going forward now.”

The total Clune Park costs uncovered by the Telegraph are: housing services employee costs, £177,897; legal services employee costs, £83,717; architect/engineer/surveyor fees, £58,167; valuation office – property valuations, £4,794; securing properties, £7,479; external legal and court fees, £312,764; Registers of Scotland enquiry, £2,410; home loss/disturbance allowance, £73,365; enforcement notices, £238; cost of re-housing occupiers, £190,347; disconnection costs, £8,786.

Council leader Stephen McCabe said: “Officers have always made it clear to elected members that the implementation of our preferred strategy for the Clune Park estate would be a lengthy and complicated process, given the determined opposition of a small group of landlords, and so it is proving to be.

“We were also advised that the process could be costly, which is why elected members unanimously approved funding in excess of £2m for this project over successive budget cycles.”