Leader of Sunderland City Council Graeme Miller has hit out at Conservatives for pushing a “non-story” after data obtained by the Echo revealed City Hall’s window cleaning bill reached £77,310 over a period of 14 months.

The Northern Echo revealed yesterday that the Labour ran council spent the cash from December 2021 to February 2023 cleaning the windows of the City Hall building located on Livingstone Road in Sunderland.

Following the report, Leader of Sunderland City Council, Graeme Miller, has accused the Conservatives of trying to score “political points” after Cllr Antony Mullen called the council’s bill “excessive”.

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In a statement, Cllr Miller said: “This ridiculous non-story being pushed by the Conservatives is a desperate bid to score much-needed political points ahead of the local elections. 

“City Hall is made almost entirely of glass; therefore of course it is going to have a significantly higher window cleaning bill than your historic, traditionally constructed council offices built 60 or 70 years ago.

“Secondly, the move to City Hall – which was built to the highest of standards by some of the best contractors in the North East - has saved the City Council approximately £130,000 in electricity bills alone, never mind gas, a vastly smaller maintenance bill, massively reduced CO2 emissions and the significant wellbeing benefits felt by our employees and users of the building. While we always strive for efficiency, our window cleaning bill pales in comparison when looking at the bigger picture.

“The Tories should also bear in mind that City Hall neighbours one of the largest building sites in the North of England, where work continues apace at the UK’s most exciting urban regeneration project – Riverside Sunderland. So, of course we’re paying a bit more for window cleaning at the moment, with such large-scale regeneration taking place on our doorstep.

“If the Tories are genuine about helping improve Sunderland’s fortunes, then Cllr Mullen should consider heeding the advice of his Prime Minister and take some extra maths lessons to prevent him from wasting our time by asking us to compare apples and oranges while we have a modern, vibrant city to run.”

The data was originally obtained by The Northern Echo through an FOI request, with the same request to other authorities revealing Sunderland’s bill is £68,174 higher than Newcastle’s £9,136 over the same period.

Sunderland Conservative party leader Dr Antony Mullen was first to criticise the bill, calling it “excessive”.

Cllr Mullen told the Echo: “Sunderland City Council does not own City Hall, it spends £2.5m per year on renting floor space, alongside Gentoo, Sunderland College and the DWP. I hope that the cost of window cleaning will be divided between all the building's tenants.

"The amount the Council has spent on window cleaning is excessive, but it is only the latest in a long line of outrageous, self-indulgent bills that the Council has racked up.”

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The glass building was built on the site of the old Vaux Brewery, with more projects including homes currently under construction around City Hall as part of a multi-million-pound development.

A spokesperson for Sunderland City Council added: "The multi-award winning City Hall is a large, modern and hi-tech building arranged over seven storeys which has been designed to reflect modern health and wellbeing standards and promote open democracy.

"The costs include specialist cleaning works such as those to the high level internal atrium. Contractors have been procured in accordance with public sector procurement requirements to ensure value for money."