Free tables and chairs on offer as £100k furniture deal looms

Published on Thursday 10 July 2008 10:28

DOZENS of surplus tables and chairs are up for grabs from a council storeroom while politicians consider spending £100,000 on plush furniture for their meetings.

The Evening News has discovered that the council is terminating its lease at a huge furniture store on Slateford Road, and all the items have been offered free of charge to managers for use in offices or schools.

But at the same time – as the News revealed last week – a decision is expected shortly on replacement furniture for the council's revamped main debating chamber.

It is understood that politicians will be given two main choices – repairing historic desks and chairs built especially for the council in 1904, now kept in storage, or buying new furniture. Either option is likely to cost at least 100,000.

Coming in the midst of a series of cutbacks, Labour group leader Andrew Burns today said the debate was even more untimely given the availability of free items from the 3000 sq m storeroom.

Deputy council leader Steve Cardownie today hit back, however, and said Labour politicians never raised this option when they voted to buy new furniture in 2006. That decision was later shelved, mainly in the wake of criticism in the Evening News.

But Mark Wallace, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said the availability of free furniture made a "mockery" of the whole situation.

"For a supposedly cash-strapped council to consider spending such a huge amount on furniture is ridiculous, and a betrayal of taxpayers," he said.

Cllr Burns added: "Only in the last few months school budgets have been cut, nursery school hot meals have been abandoned, numerous voluntary organisations have seen their funding reduced and community centres are losing full-time workers."

Last year, councillors moved to temporary accommodation at the Lothian Chambers while a 2 million revamp of their own chambers got under way.

They returned in May and are temporarily sitting on modern chairs behind wooden desks.

Cllr Cardownie has described this set-up as "disastrous", but today said the administration is "prepared to look at everything".

He said: "If Andrew Burns wants to put forward the suggestion (of using furniture from Slateford], we can look at that."

Council officials have been sent a message about the surplus furniture, which reads: "Good quality tables, desks, chairs, drawers, cabinets, shelves, soft seating, reception area furniture, storage solutions are available.

"To facilitate the return of the property to the landlord, departments are invited to view the furniture stock. Everything must go – first come, first served."

Hundreds of items have already been snapped up, and around 200 tables and chairs are thought to remain. A council spokesman said: "The store contains a variety of tables and chairs, in different designs and sizes, which would not be suitable for the Chamber."