‘Major Breaches’ Alleged In GBC Home Improvement Project

Published on: 6 Mar, 2025
Updated on: 8 Mar, 2025

Jane and Richard Hill: “We hold GBC totally responsible.”

By David Reading

A couple who suffered seven months of turmoil while Guildford Borough Council contractors carried out work on their home claim to have uncovered major breaches in the council’s own policies.

For months Jane and Richard Hill have been investigating the truth behind what they claim was a catalogue of errors in workmanship that made life unbearable for them. The story began when the contractors hired by GBC set to work on replacing the windows in their first floor flat at Rapleys Field, Pirbright, in 2023.

The Hills said there followed a period of “total disruption” and serious damage at their flat. Within days, the contractors were taken off the job. But by then the damage had been done and the Hills, who are in their sixties, then suffered unbearable stress for weeks while a second set of contractors took over the work to put right the damage and install the remaining windows.

The Hills’ investigations, made through Freedom of Information requests, led them to the conclusion that there was no signed, dated contract in place between GBC and the first company of contractors. This contravened the council’s own policies, they say. They are claiming compensation from GBC for the disruption, stress, ill-health and the anxiety they have suffered.

The Hills own the flat under a leasehold arrangement with the council, which owns the land on which it stands. As the freeholder, the council is responsible for the exterior of the building – the roofing, brickwork, window frames, soffits and gutters. The leaseholder is responsible for the interior and the window panes.

An example of the alleged poor workmanship

The essence of the Hills’ case is that a firm of contractors hired by GBC did damage to their home – causing them untold stress – while carrying out work for which there was no signed and dated contract. They are demanding a top-level meeting with GBC to discuss compensation.

GBC has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that the contracts in both cases were procured “in full compliance with relevant legislation and the council’s internal procedure rules”.

As The Guildford Dragon NEWS reported in July 2024, the couple claim the problems were down to the installers’ “poor workmanship”, citing a long list of errors and damage including broken brickwork and tiles, broken window sills, strips of wallpaper ripped, plaster removed, an internet cable broken, a serious crack across the ceiling and a broken soffit outside.

Now, around seven months later, the Hills have revealed what they claim to be serious breaches of the council’s own policies – uncovered through Freedom of Information requests (FoI).

The first alleged breach occurred at the start of the project, in July 2022, when the leaseholders in Rapleys Field received letters advising them that GBC wished to seek tenders for the replacement of windows.

A Section 20 notice (a consultation notice that landlords serve to leaseholders to inform them of planned work or services) was then issued to leaseholders and the request to tender generated by GBC’s Leaseholder Services Team.

Mrs Hill said: “This should, according to GBCs own Procurement Procedure Rules in force at the time, have been published on Contracts Finder. Despite our best efforts we cannot find any notice of this on Contracts Finder, therefore we can only assume it wasn’t.”

Contracts Finder is a Government portal that allows users to view and search opportunities that are currently open to tender, pipelines of potential procurement activity and awarded contracts.

But despite the Hills’ allegation GBC insist the work was listed on Contracts Finder.

The second alleged breach involved the lack of a contract. Through their Freedom of Information request, the Hills discovered that a letter sent by GBC to the contractors in January 2023 advised the company to proceed despite there being no signed contract between the two.

Initially, the Hills were assured by the council that whilst the written contract had not been signed, the terms were agreed and both parties were acting in accordance with the draft contract to progress the works “expeditiously”.

But Mrs Hill said her FoI investigations revealed that GBC’s rules don’t allow for a draft document to be sufficient for work to go ahead; furthermore, throughout the time the company of contractors worked at their home, no formal, signed contract existed.

She said: “The council rules state that work must not begin under a contract until both parties have signed the contract document. But as of the date works began, no dated, signed and sealed contract between GBC and the contractor existed despite there being a requirement for this within the Procurement Procedure Rules 2021, which were in force during the period July 2022 up to the end of December 2024.”

The Hills say that despite several requests to see the signed, dated contract, each time they were shown a draft.

Mrs Hill added: “As GBC allowed the works to proceed without a signed and dated contract in place with the contractors, we, as leaseholders, hold GBC completely and solely responsible for the damage to our home which resulted as a direct result of their total incompetence.

“No contract was in place in April 2023, when contractors replaced windows in our home, and still no contract was in place as of December 19th 2024, as a response to one of our Freedom of Information requests confirmed. We believe GBC have acted illegally.”

The Hills are demanding a meeting with the CEO of GBC, Pedro Wrobel, and the leader of GBC, Cllr Julia McShane (Lib Dem, Westborough), to discuss a compensation package.

When The Dragon first put the Hills’ allegations of disruption and damage to Guildford Borough Council in July 2024, they replied: “We are aware of these complaints and they are currently being investigated. We do not comment on individual cases.”

That was around seven months ago.

Mr and Mrs Hill say that during that time nothing happened to resolve the matter. “They tell us the matter is closed,” Mrs Hill said. “They won’t even sit round a table to discuss it. We want GBC to stand by the statement made by the previous Joint CEO, Tom Horwood, in his email to us dated 13 September 2023 whereby he said ‘We can talk about compensation in the right way when the time comes’.” In the Hills’ opinion, the time is now.

Asked for a statement last week about the allegations of procedural breaches, GBC simply said first of all: “We do not provide comment on individual cases.” There was no mention of the results of those aforementioned investigations.

When pressed further, GBC released a fuller statement: “We acknowledge that work carried out in residents’ homes can sometimes cause disruption. We’re sorry that in the case of Mr and Mrs Hill, disruption may have gone on for longer than normal while we carried out work to replace their windows.

“Everyone deserves to have a safe and secure home. We are committed to providing excellent value for money for all residents, and our independently reviewed and comprehensive improvement plan is already delivering improvements.

“We have reviewed the situation and can confirm that both contracts in this case were procured in full compliance with relevant legislation and our internal procedure rules, including being listed on contracts finder.

“Senior housing staff are in direct contact with Mr and Mrs Hill, and we remain committed to providing high-quality services to all our tenants.”

We have decided not to publish the contractor’s name while the Hills’ complaints remain ongoing. Asked by The Dragon for sight of their contract with GBC, a spokesperson for the company replied: “Unfortunately we can’t seem to find a signed contract. We have a letter notifying us of GBC’s intention to award but can’t find an actual contract.”

When we ran our previous report in July 2024 the contractors told The Dragon that in normal circumstances their installers, all skilled and experienced workers, would not leave properties the way Mr and Mrs Hill are saying. However, they say they were taken off the job before they could complete due to “internal wranglings” within GBC. The statement said: “Any alleged inconvenience and disruption caused to the Hills is firmly at the door of Guildford BC and others and certainly not our company.”