Leading Chartered Surveyor firm, Bruton Knowles, has secured a recent bid win to support Scarborough Borough Council’s property portfolio work.
Experts from Bruton Knowles’ National Building Consultancy Team — based out of the Yorkshire office in Leeds — are providing reinstatement cost assessments on a number of council properties. These types of appraisals are an essential component of property ownership to ensure insurance cover accurately reflects rebuilding costs.
Local authorities are required to conduct regular inspections at five-yearly intervals as a statutory requirement so that reinstatement costs remain current. And as the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower disaster has just been marked, the whole issue of ensuring both accurate insurance valuations and building safety measures, have once again come to the fore.
Scarborough Borough Council has many properties, ranging from depots to council offices, community and sports facilities to piers, pavilions, and parks. As well as assessing some of these types of assets from a reinstatement cost point of view, Bruton Knowles has also been involved in delivering two market valuation exercises for a small but unique historic building and a large industrial site.
Ian Mulvaney, Head of Bruton Knowles’ National Building Consultancy Team, explained: “Every built environment asset is unique from the perspective of its location, plot size, internal design, and general amenities. And although market forces play a part in determining overall values, consideration must also be given to a wider range of factors in order to present a fair analysis. That’s why we use methodologies approved by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). This ensures we provide our clients with robust assessments to support value allocations that are a fair reflection for all parties involved, including both tenants and leaseholders.”
There are many hidden risks associated with under-insurance, which have been exacerbated by the impacts of Brexit and the pandemic on rebuilding costs. Supply chain issues are pushing prices up, as demand continues to outstrip supply when it comes to both labour and material availability. Over-insurance is also problematic because it means too much is being paid for buildings cover.
Ian continued: “We’re delighted to be supporting Scarborough Borough Council in managing their assets in a safe and effective way. This is the goal of our National Building Consultancy team, and we strive to deliver reliable and trusted intelligence that enables all our clients to achieve this objective.”
Bruton Knowles already acts on behalf of a significant number of public organisations, on both a retained and a project basis, and is seen as a trusted partner in delivering high-quality surveying advice.
