>>The Palace of Westminster is home to one of the busiest Parliamentary institutions
in the world. Thousands of people work here and visit every day, to engage in the political
process. More than a million people, including 40,000 schoolchildren, pass through its doors
each year and millions of tourists come to see one of the most iconic and recognisable
buildings in the world. Completed in the mid-1800s by the architect
Charles Barry, many of the palaceís features, including much of its impressive cast iron
roof, have never undergone major renovation. The cumulative effects of pollution and the
lack of maintenance has cause extensive decay to stonework. A combination of leaking roofs
and corroded gutters and downpipes is damaging stone carved ceilings. Some of the tiled floors
have decayed so much they could become unsafe. The heating, ventilation, plumbing and electrical
systems are extremely antiquated, and fire safety improvements are needed.
In 2012, a new study indicated that unless significant restoration work is undertaken
major irreversible damage will be done to the palace and part of our nationís valued
heritage will be lost forever. So what is being done to tackle these problems and to
ensure that the palace continues as a fully-functioning Parliament building fit for the 21st century?
With the agreement of both Houses of Parliament a number of options for a longer tem plan
for restoration and renewal are being considered. In the meantime, because the damage and decay
to roofs, floors and stonework is so severe, work is already underway to protect the building
for years to come. And work on the aging mechanical and electrical systems could not be put off
any longer because the risk of system failure was so high. But at this stage, only 15 per
cent of the highest risk buildings service plant rooms are being replaced to buy time,
while a longer term approach is identified. All of this work has to fit around the business
and daily sittings of Parliament in order to minimise disruption. But this means it's
taking much longer and adding significantly to the overall cost.
Mel Barlex, Parliamentary Director of Estates>>We have to balance our need for doing the work,
with the amount of disruption, against the risk of the services failing and the risk
of the fabric having irreparable damage and deterioration occurring to it. Part of the
design of this building was to have cast iron guttering, set into the stonework, which means
you canít see it or access it, the same way that you would with most modern buildings.
And what happens is that we donít know when those cast iron gutters start to fail. We
won't know, probably until years after its actually happened and then weíll be tracing
a leak back, looking at deterioration and where it started from. And that's a general
problem that we have on this building. And we have to address that.
This is Central Lobby. It's the centre of Parliament. You can see both Houses' chambers
from here, and the damage that you can see is up there. If you look at the water damage
you can see how the decorative area has been affected by it. If we don't address that,
over time what will happen is that stone will decay further and bits will fall off. I have
to just stress, it is safe at the moment though! In respect of the House of Commons, the chamber
has stonework that needs to be cleaned. It has windows that need to be addressed, they've
not been looked at since the war. We've got to do something about the relative humidity
in that area to stop the deterioration. The engineering systems that support that are
not actually up to the job that modern systems are today. Basically, the whole of the chamber
needs to be looked at.
Dr Mark Collins, Archivist and Historian, Parliamentary Estates>>Well, weíre standing
in the House of Lords chamber. Although it looks very glamorous, a very beautiful room,
it does have serious underlying problems. It has difficulties with the windows which
have to be repaired so that they don't let in water and so that we can reduce the heat
loss and the woodwork has become dried out by poor control of the temperature and the
relative humidity. There is work to be done on the sculpture, on the ceiling, we have
to scaffold and really take over the room completely.
Adam Watrobski, Principal Architect, Parliamentary Estates>>Weíre in Westminster Hall which
is the main entrance to the Houses of Parliament, and the main issues of the Hall revolve around
the medieval roof, which dates from the 15th century and the stonework itself, which dates
from the 19th century. These are essential repairs because the staining
that you can see on the walls is 19th century atmospheric pollution which contains sulphur
and when that gets damp it turns into acid which actually starts to erode the stone.
We've found in several areas that there are pieces of stone that are ready to fall off.
We're going to clean the stonework and once weíve cleaned it weíre going to assess it
for repairs and then carry out the repairs. The work itself is in several phases and the
first phase has been completed, which is the North Wall and the Jubilee Window.
There is a huge issue in here with encaustic tiles. As you progress from St Stephen's,
here, into Central Lobby that's got encaustic tiles on it into the two corridors going
into the House of Commons and the House of Lords and then into Royal Gallery where we've
got a vast quantity of encaustic tiles. We think most of them have been done for at least
150 years. They're very well worn indeed, and when they wear they start to delaminate,
the bases start to go and they wobble. We have a huge health and safety problem with
that. What you're seeing here is the tiles being
replaced, very nearly in their entirety. They're handmade, each one is slightly different
so the problems inherent in getting a flat floor are enormous. They have to be very carefully
laid in a traditional way and the slates in between have to be renewed as well. Where
you can see on the surface that there are cracks that usually indicates that underneath
there is some movement.
Mel Barlex, Parliamentary Director of Estates>>If nothing is done if we're in that world
where we're not able to do any work at all then the Palace would grind to a halt.
Parts of it would fail, some much sooner than others. More specifically, the services
would fail. They are being constantly attended to and looked after by my team and we're
very good at that, but there is only so much that you can do in repairing and fixing. We
need to replace. We have a responsibility, a duty, to make sure it is maintained and
kept in the right condition and prepared for future use.
>>While longer term plans for the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster are
being considered the essential maintenance and conservation work continues.
To find out more, please watch the other videos in this series.