Council wants to rent out part of its Town Hall HQ
A COUNCIL is looking to rent out an entire floor of one of its headquarters buildings before one is “mothballed” entirely.
Erewash Borough Council has detailed that the whole first floor of its Ilkeston Town Hall headquarters is to be rented out in a bid to save costs and bring in more much-needed funding.
This comes as the authority continues to consider which of its two town hall headquarters, in Ilkeston and Long Eaton, are to be “mothballed” in an overhaul of the authority’s historic estate. The current situation in which the authority has two headquarters is a hangover from the council’s merger in 1974 of the former Ilkeston and Long Eaton district councils.
This also comes as the council celebrates its 50th anniversary.
The first floor of Ilkeston Town Hall will be leased to White Label Resources Limited, a professional services company, for five years for an undisclosed sum.
Details in a report to be discussed by the leading Labour executive next week show the council would release “immediate savings” by “mothballing” one of its two headquarters, at a time when local government finds itself scrambling to make savings whilst receiving less funding. The report says the town hall which will be mothballed has not been determined yet.
It says one option would be to carry out a major refurbishment of one of the town halls and to then lease it. A second option is to sell one of the town halls entirely as a development opportunity, saving the money on the refurbishment.
It says: “Work is under way to commission an external options appraisal to identify which site to mothball and to assess the longerterm options, setting out the relative merits for each.”
The report says either town hall would be able to accommodate all of the authority’s staff, even if some space, such as the first floor in Ilkeston, was rented out.
This is due to the increase in hybrid working with many staff carrying out their duties from home for part or all of the week.