December 05, 2011
The council’s legal bill for the demolition of a 50 year old derelict building in Stockton has reached £95,000 after a prolonged legal battle.
The property which is called Billingham House used to be the headquarters of ICI but has been empty for many years and is often victim to vandalism.
A company called Bizzy B Management own the building, have plans to refurbish it but these were rejected in the high court and the council was given permission to demolish the building. However work on bulldozing the site has been delayed by an appeal lodged by the company. The council want to demolish the building as it is in their opinion an eye-sore and there has already been significant delays in refurbishing the building.
A spokesman for the council said: “Bizzy B has failed each time to persuade the court to develop the site. This has been going on since 2008 and the company will have to eventually have to pay our legal costs. We all want to see this blot on the landscape removed once and for all and as quickly as possible.”
Bizzy B Management signed a deal with the property firm, Python Properties to redevelop the site in August 2010. Martin Johnson a spokesman for Python Properties said: “It is a good, well-built building and we want to keep it that size. But if it was demolished it could not be rebuilt to that scale because of current planning regulations.
“It is insane that the council wants to spend public money demolishing the building when we want to invest £5m of private money and create 1000 jobs.”
