Agenda item

Report of the City Surveyor.

The Committee received a report of the City Surveyor setting out the work undertaken to the Millennium Inclinator since the Committee agreed that it should be maintained to a higher standard than the other public lifts. The City Surveyor advised that the Inclinator was still out of service at times, but it was felt the new approach was working. The Inclinator had been out of service for a total of 181 hours since the repair work completed in April 2018, which was down on previous years. Officers tried to ensure that any closures undertaken were done as quickly and conveniently as possible.

A Member told the Committee that they would not necessarily agree that the new approach was working, adding that the Inclinator had been out of service over the weekend. The Member requested that officers calculate the total cost of maintaining the Inclinator since the City of London Corporation had inherited the Millennium Bridge, and report this to the Committee. The Committee could then be aware of the investment being made and consider whether this was the right approach and if the Inclinator was fit for purpose. A Member added that they had recently been significantly inconvenienced by an outage to the Inclinator, which had highlighted a lack of accessibility in the area which was not good for the City of London Corporation’s image.

A Member asked that officers report the failure rate and level of traffic for the Inclinator in comparison to other escalators and lifts in the City of London, and asked whether it was possible that the City Surveyor’s department were not aware of all breakdowns. The City Surveyor responded that a lift was only included in the report if it had been in service for less than 95% of the time, but the Inclinator could be excluded from this with all breakdowns reported.

Members felt that it would be prudent to start forward planning for the long-term and investigating a total replacement, and that it was misleading if breakdowns for short periods were not reported. The Chairman added that a fully-functional long-term solution was needed, and asked that all breakdowns for the Millennium Inclinator were reported going forward.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.