MORE than £40,000 has had to be spent on repairs at a council property to help prevent the risk of Legionnaire's disease spreading.

A repair project which had to be carried out in changing rooms at Exwick Playing Fields contributed to an overspend of £70,000 on work at city-owned non-housing buildings.

Exeter City Council has revealed the sums in a report which went before councillors this week. Officers have insisted that the overspend was merely "technical" as there had been under-spends in other areas.

An £8,000 budget had originally been set out for Legionella risk prevention in non-housing buildings, to make improvements to water systems which would "eliminate completely or critically reduce" the spread of the disease.

Legionnaire's disease is a potentially fatal form of pneumonia caused by a bacteria that can be found naturally in water sources.

But an overspend of £36,000 occurred and a council spokesman said: "The changing rooms where a risk was identified were in Exwick, where the configuration of the pipe work had the potential to provide a source of contamination.

"We therefore took the view that we needed to reroute the pipe work to remove the potential risk. We take the safety of all those who use our changing rooms very seriously and that is why we carry out regular routine maintenance, including weekly disinfection of shower heads to reduce the risk of Legionella ever occurring."

A number of other overspends occurred. This included a project to repair a council-owned stone wall near the mill leat in Alphington.

A total of £13,000 was set aside for this project but it cost £27,000, due to the complexity of the work cause by the collapse of the wall.

It also cost more than had been anticipated to carry out work to ensure the continuing operation of the canal. The council had budgeted £24,440, but, in their report on the matter, officers revealed: "The cost of repairs and other financial demands on the service have meant an overspend of £14,000 is anticipated.

"Additional costs in extensive repairs to the canal bank and the installation of a computerised metering system also contributed to a £5,000 overspend in special works at the canal."

But a council spokesman said: "All of this is ongoing testing and preventative work to non-housing properties. However, this is all a technical overspend as there are other budgets in inspection and maintenance that are underspent."