THE historic Grade II-listed Bourne Mill Antiques Centre in Guildford Road shows no sign of being repaired more than a year after a devastating fire ripped through the 300-year-old building - with its owner currently locked in a protracted battle with his insurance company.

It was initially hoped that the much-loved antiques centre would reopen for business “six to 12 weeks” after a fire took hold of the upper floor of the 17th century building in November, 2015.

However, according to its long-time owner Glynn Evans, the gap between his and insurer Axa’s valuation of the repair costs is still “more than half a million pounds” and he is now considering legal action to get the issue resolved.

In the meantime, the building, which Mr Evans describes as “at risk”, has been patched up with a tin roof and its 70 antiques dealers, leaseholders David and Claire Myers and cafe staff have been forced to seek a living elsewhere until the deadlock can be broken.

Mr Evans, who has owned the Bourne Mill since the mid-1980s, told The Herald: “Axa have made me an offer which I refused and I’m probably going to end up having to issue legal proceedings. We had hoped to get it fixed and reopened by the end of 2016, but it’s been over a year now since the fire and we’re still no closer to a solution.

“The situation I think should be resolved by Easter but I’m not really sure, because Axa are being so intransigent and I think like all insurance companies, they make an initial assessment of their exposure, and once that’s done it doesn’t matter what anybody else comes up with, they don’t want to review it.”

Mr Evans added he has hired his own specialist heritage valuer and surveyor to assist his loss assessor and project manager, and he estimates the repair costs at “about £1 million”. However, Axa has “not even offered half a million” towards these costs, he said.

First on the list of things to repair is the charred remains of the Bourne Mill’s roof. But according to Mr Evans most of the damage to the historic building was not caused by the fire, but by the “million litres” of water firefighters pumped into the building to extinguish the blaze.

He continued: “The building is essentially brick on the outside and timber on the inside. The water brought all the ceilings down and every bit of timber in the building now needs to be stripped and re-treated.

“The fire took place on the upper floor, but because of the water the majority of the damage is on the lower floors.”

Mr Evans’ contractors have estimated the repairs will take a full year to complete, raising the prospect that the mill will not reopen for business until mid-2018 at the earliest.

“It is a great tragedy and I have to say that in the 33 years that I’ve owned it, I never expected it to be the way it is,” he added. “But hopefully we’ll get there eventually.”

Central to Mr Evans dispute with his insurance company, it seems, is a claim by Axa that the building was under-insured at the time of the fire.

Mr Evans believes it was “incumbent” on Axa to review both the building, the insured loss and the method of calculating a repair for a very old, historic building when the company took over the insurance business of his previous insurer HSBC in 2012.

However, Axa has taken a different stance - arguing that it falls on the insuree to ensure his property is adequately covered.

A spokesman for the insurance company said: “We sympathise with Mr Evans and his tenants who have been impacted by the fire that damaged Bourne Mill Antiques Centre.

“Commercial claims, especially those that involve significant fires, are complex in nature and can take some time to deal with. This claim has been further delayed due to circumstances beyond our control but we are still working towards a resolution and have already made interim payments to Mr Evans.

“However, having evaluated the damage caused, and looking closely at Mr Evans policy, we discovered that Bourne Mill was under-insured.

“We have previously suggested that an independent valuation of the building is carried out to allow us to establish what the sum insured should be, but to date this has been rejected.

“We have offered a cash settlement to reflect the cover in force and are waiting for Mr Evans to respond.”