Town hall Council to spend millions on major revamp

MILLIONS of pounds are to be spent on remodelling Westonsuper-Mare Town Hall so council chiefs can sell off a ‘surplus’ office site.

North Somerset Council is due to rubber-stamp plans to spend £2 million to adapt the authority’s headquarters in the seaside resort to make room for hundreds of additional staff.

The move follows a decision by the authority – faced with a budget shortfall of £17m next year – to sell off its Castlewood office complex in Clevedon, which it bought in 2010 for £12.6m.

The council has since undertaken a review of its assets and has deemed the sprawling Castlewood as surplus to requirements.

The office complex – the former home of Clerical Medical – has been the primary site for a number of services since the council moved in.

Council purseholders say the complex has a maintenance backlog and would cost £1.1m a year to run. The plan is for it to be vacated by 2025, with the first staff moving out next year.

The move to dispose of the building would save the council around £1m a year. Subject to approval by councillors, council officers will develop options for the future of the site. These could include homes, space for business or a mixed-use development.

As well as the £2m budget for the remodelling, the council is spending a further £993,300 on a commissioning and procurement plan to appoint a contractor to carry out the changes at Weston Town Hall.

The work to the town hall, which will see the upper floor of the building changed to accommodate additional staff, is due to start next spring, with staff starting to move in next summer.

There will still be around 300 staff the new town hall will be unable to accommodate. These will be based in alternative locations.

A council spokesman said: “A budget of £2m has been identified and approved for the town hall works.

“Progressing the move from Castlewood will release savings of up to £1m a year from 2025, so investment needs to be made in the town hall building to support the plans for our new ways of working (hybrid working), to fully adopt and embed the workstyles and to unlock the value from releasing the Castlewood site.”

The council’s policy and scrutiny panel was due to meet yesterday to discuss the plans.