Council opens new £18m HQ then tells staff: Don’t turn up
A NEW £18million council headquarters has been standing almost empty because staff are being told to stay at home – even though Covid restrictions lifted months ago.
One social worker said employees were ‘forced to work from home’ and the premises was operating at 30 per cent capacity.
She revealed she was only allowed back after citing personal problems at home, and just five of her 30-strong team were allowed to come in.
Bosses at Cambridgeshire County Council’s New Shire Hall insisted on social distancing until late last week, even though this has long been abandoned even in the NHS.
The council opened the base in Alconbury last summer, saying it would save the public £40million over 25 years. The Lib Dem-Labour coalition that runs the local authority is currently refusing to hold full council meetings there.
Another employee said he had no idea how busy the offices were in general because he was only allowed there one day a week. A dog walker who passes daily added: ‘It’s pretty quiet.’
But Labour councillor Gerri Bird insisted yesterday that it was ‘busy’ inside. She said: ‘I don’t know where that report came from. It’s just about getting back to normal here. We go in for meetings.’
A council spokesman said it was ‘incorrect’ to suggest that no one was working at the building.
A 108-year-old bus service linking Bromsgrove and Birmingham is to be axed because ‘very few people’ now use it, operator First Worcester said. The company blamed factors such as ‘people working from home, flexible working patterns... and the use of other modes of travel’.