AN ARCHITECT from Grange-over-Sands whose job was to ensure the air conditioning system at Barrow's Forum 28 was adequately maintained cancelled part of a contract that might have prevented legionnaires' disease breaking out in the Furness town, a court heard.

Preston Crown Court was told Gillian Beckingham was responsible for arranging a maintenance contract that omitted vital water treatment and testing work for the arts venue's ageing air conditioning system.

Seven people died and 172 people suffered from the illness during the legionnaires' disease outbreak in August 2002 which was traced to the Barrow Borough Council-owned building.

Beckingham, 45, and Barrow Borough Council deny seven counts of manslaughter, in the first corporate manslaughter case in British legal history to be brought against a local authority and employee.

The court was told that over a year before the outbreak Beckingham, head of design services at the council, had wanted to change maintenance contractors because she felt the authority was not getting value for money.

In July 2001 Beckingham met Forum 28's former technical manager Kevin Borthwick to discuss details for a new contract at which he had pointed out that water testing in the air conditioning system should be carried out weekly.

Beckingham suggested Mr Borthwick looked into doing water testing in-house, which he did but to no avail.

A maintenance contract, starting on September 1, 2001, was subsequently agreed with a company called Interserve, the court was told.

It was only when environmental health officials came to take water samples after the outbreak of legionnaires' disease was confirmed on August 1, 2002, that Mr Borthwick realised no water testing or chemical dosing had been carried out since the previous maintenance contract was ended in May 2001.

He noticed the barrels, which contained the chemicals that were automatically pumped into the water to kill off bacteria, belonged to the previous contractors Streamline and not Interserve. The barrels were found to be empty.

"After environmental health left, I had a conversation with the building manager and said if we were not the source of legionnaires', we were lucky," said Mr Borthwick. "If we were, we were in a lot of trouble."

The next day, Mr Borthwick told environmental health he thought the testing and dosing contract had been cancelled and that was the responsibility of Beckingham.

The jury also heard there was no discussion at all about removing dosing from the new Interserve contract at the meeting in July.

Mr Borthwick said he was never told what actually happened until after the event.

The trial continues.