Barnet's 2019 Colindale offices have fire safety defects. Repairs run November 2026 to November 2028; Cabinet decides £770,136 of oversight on 12 October.
Barnet Council’s main offices in Colindale need two years of fire safety repairs, seven years after the building opened. Work is expected to start in November 2026 and finish in November 2028.
The council’s Cabinet will be asked on Monday 12 October to approve £770,136 for consultants to oversee the repairs. That money pays for supervision only. The repairs themselves are the contractor’s job.
The figures are in a Cabinet report published ahead of the meeting. It is listed as a key decision on the Cabinet agenda for 12 October.
What is wrong with the building
The Colindale Office is a nine-storey building, including a basement, completed in 2019 under a design and build contract. The report says later fire safety investigations found “latent defects” in:
- fire compartmentation, the walls and floors meant to stop a fire spreading
- passive and active fire protection systems
- the means of escape
- parts of the external wall
Intrusive surveys have “confirmed deficiencies requiring remediation”, the report says. It describes the defects as ones that “compromise fire safety, if not addressed”.
The council says it has put interim fire safety measures in place on specialist advice, so the building “remains safe for staff, visitors and other users”. Those measures will stay until every defect is fixed.
The report does not name the original contractor, or the firm carrying out the repairs.
What the £770,136 buys
The oversight is split into four packages, all covering the 25 months of work:
| Package | Cost |
|---|---|
| Specialist fire engineering adviser, expert fire safety consultant and a clerk of works on site | £260,880 |
| A new team of consultant project managers to monitor the contractor | £245,256 |
| Keeping Capita’s property director and a technical adviser, who know the building’s history | £144,000 |
| A provisional sum for a mechanical and electrical engineer and, if needed, cladding and facade specialists | £120,000 |
| Total | £770,136 |
The spending is spread over three financial years: £145,338 in 2026/27, £374,878 in 2027/28 and £249,920 in 2028/29.
The fire engineering contract would be awarded without using a framework. That needs a waiver of the council’s contract rules, which the report asks Cabinet to grant.
No budget yet, and a claim against “responsible parties”
The report is frank that the money has not been set aside. “There is currently no dedicated budget allocation for these costs,” it says. The spending will be charged to existing works and staffing codes.
The council’s position is that the defects come from the original design and construction. It is tracking every cost of the investigations, oversight and repairs. The aim is to recover “eligible costs from responsible parties” through what the report calls the council’s “ongoing claim process”, depending on the outcome of legal and contractual proceedings. The report gives no figure for the claim and no date for it to be settled.
The timing is awkward. The council is trying to close a forecast budget gap of £198 million a year by 2029/30, as we reported in our story on its financial sustainability plan. That plan includes letting a third floor of these same offices to a tenant.
Why Capita is still involved
Capita has run the project management for the defects programme so far, under the council’s wider contract with the company. That contract was due to end in September 2026. The council has already brought its IT service back in-house from Capita.
The report says the construction phase needs more oversight than the investigation stage did, so a dedicated team is being hired. It recommends keeping two Capita people, the property director and a technical adviser, to retain what they know about the building and “indemnify the Council’s position”.
The risks the council lists
The report’s own risk table sets out what could go wrong:
- surveys during the work could find more latent defects, adding cost and time
- delays to the contractor’s designs or works could stretch the programme
- work not built to the approved design would have to be redone
- if the repairs fall short, the building “may remain non-compliant”
It also warns the work will be “generally disruptive”. Staff and tenants will have to move out of areas floor by floor and then move back. Some parts of the building will be restricted while work goes on.
What it means for you
- If you visit the Colindale offices, expect parts of the building to be closed off from November while floors are cleared for work. The council says the building is safe to use in the meantime.
- As a council tax payer, the £770,136 comes from council funds before any of it is recovered. Whether it is recovered depends on a claim the council has not put a value on.
- You can watch the decision. Cabinet meets at 7pm on Monday 12 October. The meeting page carries the agenda and, afterwards, the decisions.
We will report what Cabinet decides.
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