The last two properties on the audit list — a pair of adjoining warehouses on the upper end of Harbourfront Parade — were assessed on Friday morning, bringing the three-week Docklands safety review to its conclusion. The final count is not encouraging.

Of seventy-two vacant commercial properties surveyed between Greystone Wharf and Harrowgate Pier, eighteen have been flagged with irregularities of varying severity. That is one in four. The breakdown, according to sources familiar with the audit findings: five lapsed fire safety certificates, four properties with no documentation at all, three with falsified certificates (referred to the Metropolitan Constabulary), two with expired insurance, two with evidence of unauthorised habitation, and two with structural or maintenance concerns.

The final two assessments added two irregularities to the tally. One of the Harbourfront Parade warehouses — a four-storey brick structure built in the 1890s and vacant since 2022 — was found to have significant water damage to its eastern load-bearing wall. Fire Marshal Edwin Hale, who coordinated the audit, has recommended an emergency structural assessment.

“The wall is not imminently dangerous,” said a source close to the audit team. “But it is not something you want to discover by accident.”

The Report

The preliminary report is being compiled this weekend by Hale’s office in coordination with the Revenue Office and the Metropolitan Constabulary. It is expected to be presented to the full City Council on or around Wednesday 19 March.

The report will recommend, among other measures, a mandatory annual inspection regime for all vacant commercial properties in the Docklands — a significant expansion of current requirements, which apply only to occupied buildings. It will also recommend that the three properties with falsified certificates be referred for criminal prosecution.

Councilwoman Ida Pryce, who proposed the audit on 19 February, said on Friday that she would reserve comment until the report was formally presented but added: “Eighteen out of seventy-two tells you something about how long this district was allowed to look after itself.”

Ashcroft in the Dock

Gerald Ashcroft’s property group owns or manages fourteen of the seventy-two properties surveyed. The precise number flagged with irregularities has not been disclosed, but sources indicate it is “a significant proportion.”

Ashcroft’s solicitor, Edmond Crayle, filed a Municipal Tribunal appeal last week against the Revenue Office’s 2.35-million-florin tax penalty, seeking an interim order suspending the accrual of monthly penalties. No hearing date has been set.

The Ashcroft Property Group offices on Harker Street have been closed on Monday and Tuesday afternoons for the past fortnight. Crayle declined to comment on Friday.

What Comes Next

The audit’s completion marks the end of the most comprehensive review of Docklands property safety in at least two decades. Whether it leads to meaningful reform will depend on the council’s appetite for enforcement — and for the political fight that is likely to accompany it.

Councilman Aldric Voss, who voted against the audit on procedural grounds but has since called for the results to be made public in full, said: “The Docklands deserve better than this. The question is whether the council is prepared to make that expensive.”

The preliminary report is expected to run to more than forty pages.