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Permalink Reply by Jessica Courtney Bennett on September 29, 2010 at 1:05pm

Hi Annemarie, this sounds like a job for a creative lawyer! We talked to the Ethical Property Foundation about Health and Safety so they might be worth an ask? I think things become very difficult is in public sector ownership as opposed to private. I wonder if there were a temporary insurance that would look at meanwhile properties specifically for this sort of thing.

It might be worth contacting the Meanwhile Space insurers about this, they might have some advice? I will ask them to comment.

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Permalink Reply by eddie bridgeman on September 30, 2010 at 9:12am

We'll ask the insurance company for guidance and post a response. My first is thought is that we (or someone else) could take a meanwhile lease on the property for 24/48 hours, suitably insure it for the period thus transfering the "risk" of a clear-up.
Will look into it and let you know.
Eddie

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Permalink Reply by Annemarie Naylor on October 1, 2010 at 11:17am

Thanks everyone - @b_community has posted reference to this page on the groups Facebook page - so, they might well be in touch with one or all of us in due course!

Anna Hirschfeld said:

Hi Annemarie and all,
Having had a quick chat in the office we are not sure if the Council would be up for using a meanwhile lease. As they are already in discussions with developers they may feel that giving this group any legal footing in connection with this building could be a risk to them, but it's always worth asking!

Another way around this is if the group were to approach the council as someone who could be contracted to do the cleanup works. If they were acting as a contractor then the community group would be the ones who would require appropriate insurance which they could look to get for a couple of days. As an agreement the Council could pay them a nominal fee (£1?) and then they could get on with the job as any other contractor going on site would be able to.

Obviously the group would have to get insurance sorted, the council may cry that they need to tender for works, and they may ask for detailed risk assessments. We were also unsure if the group would need to have a legal structure to allow them to act as a contractor with the appropriate insurance.

I can look into this further if people think it might be worth it.
Anna

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