A Surrey council leader has pledged she “will not rest” until residents have the best possible service after “decades of failure”.

Julia McShane, Guildford Borough Council leader, delivered a passionate pledge to residents at a full council meeting last week, promising to fix what she described as “decades of failure” in the housing service.

Cllr McShane, also lead member for housing, made the statement as the council approved an additional £2.4 million to complete its fire door replacement programme on July 30. Just over 960 fire doors still need replacing across the borough’s housing stock, according to council documents.

The Liberal Democrat leader said the project had been hampered by years of neglect and poor record keeping under the previous Conservative council leadership.

“The depth of their neglect of the housing service is such that it will take more time to find everything that needs to be put right,” Cllr McShane said.

“For as long as I have the privilege of being the lead member for housing, I will not rest until that task is completed and we have a housing service delivering the best possible service to the residents we serve.”

The remarks come after Guildford council revealed at least a £500k overspend on the fire door programme. Cllr McShane said this was caused by incomplete historic data around the number of fire doors which needed upgraded replacements and so underestimating the costs.

Council reports reveal £4.1 million has already been spent on the fire door replacement scheme – far above the original £2.5 million contract estimate. Although the council had budgeted £3.6 million.

The £2.4 million needed to finish the project is based on £800k already committed to orders being placed and manufactured, with £1.6 million is needed to replace all outstanding fire doors. Altogether, this brings the total cost of the programme to £6.5 million.

She accused the local Conservatives of trying to “divert attention” from the “mess they left behind”.

Mudslinging ensued as Cllr Bob Hughes (Conservative/ Tillingbourne) said: “It is an extraordinary thing when the executive member, who presumably signed this off because it was under her watch, blames the Conservatives.”

“This does cost money, deal with it,” said Cllr Merel Rehorst-Smith ((Liberal Democrat/ Effingham), outlining the importance of the fire door safety project. “This is a statutory duty and a moral duty we have.”

Cllr Catherine Houston (Liberal Democrat/ Shalford) said: “If you look at anything that has gone through this council around housing improvement, you should be cheering from the rafters as we have her there.”

Cllr Patrick Oven (Guildford Greenbelt Group/ Send & Lovelace) reflected that while the situation initially appeared to reflect past failings- with contracts being mishandled and poorly supervised from the alleged multimillion pound fraud scandal in 2021 – it actually shows signs of improvement. He praised the council for appearing to scrutinise contracts more closely than in the past.

The fire safety door project is part of the council’s wider ‘improvement plan’ which includes reviewing all services for unresolved problems.