Guard paid to oversee Bromley Civic Centre back-up generator

The issue came to light in at last week’s full council meeting, after Cllr Kathy Bance became aware that a man has been stationed overnight in the car park of the building, which operates as a vaccination centre, for months. 

A switch which would automatically bring the generator online in case of a power cut needs replacing, Cllr Arthur said in reply, meaning someone must always be available to switch it on manually if required, guaranteeing vaccines are kept at the right temperature.

Bromley Council Leader Cllr Colin Smith (foreground) welcoming Jonathan Lofthouse, Site Chief Executive at the PRUH, part of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Labour Councillor Angela Wilkins said: “This is a bonkers situation – not only is some poor chap having to kip in a van, but our council taxes are being spent on something which should have been avoided because this broken switch was identified well before COVID kicked in.

“This sort of money could have paid for a couple of youth workers or teaching assistants for a year – it’s just another example of public money being badly managed.”

Bromley Council denies that the worker is sleeping in the van.

A mass coronavirus vaccination centre was established at Bromley’s Civic Centre in March, with the capacity to jab 1000 people a day.

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines must be kept at sub-zero temperatures to avoid spoiling.

If vaccines are exposed to temperatures outside a small range, they must be thrown away.

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It is therefore crucial that the freezers they are stored in have a guaranteed power source.

Bromley Council said that work to repair the back-up generator infrastructure has been postponed due to the need to ensure a constant power supply.

A council spokesperson said: “It has been absolutely crucial in this pandemic period to maintain 24/7 power supplies to the civic centre, including to make sure that vital vaccinations are stored correctly and therefore planned much needed power renewal work, including the back-up infrastructure, has been postponed but will shortly be able to go ahead.”

“We don’t think it would serve the Borough’s best interests at all well were the power and fridges to fail and potentially thousands upon thousands of life-saving Covid vaccinations lost.

“Others appear to take a different view and I will leave it for your readers to decide which makes more sense.”