The Council is planning to tear down County Hall. And have a slimmed down version. They want it in the City Centre. Not sure this is sensible given the horrendous traffic and pollution issues, but open minded to hear what they propose. Here is the email from the Chief Exec:
Dear colleagues
Next week Cabinet will consider a report on the council’s approach to office accommodation.
As you know, over recent years our top priority has been to stimulate economic growth and regeneration, creating jobs and attracting investment to the county. We are making good progress, with major investments such as Hitachi in Newton Aycliffe and Atom Bank in Durham City.
Cabinet will consider a proposal for the council to move its headquarters from County Hall, at Aykley Heads in Durham City so that the area can become a ‘strategic employment site’, capable of attracting thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of investment to the county.
Aykley Heads has already shown its potential in recent years, with Sunderland Marine and Durham Constabulary developing new head offices on the site. They will soon be joined by Atom Bank, who are going to build their UK headquarters on the site, having taken up temporary accommodation in a former council building which we made available to get them to invest in the city.
Depending on the outcome of the discussions over the County Durham Plan, we believe that the proposed strategic employment site could create between 2,500 and 6,000 private sector jobs.
We will also be proposing to Members that in moving off the site, they should consider relocating the council’s headquarters to Durham City centre, in order to support the local economy and to trigger further city centre development and regeneration. This would be accompanied by accommodating more of our office-based staff in the four main office bases we have established in recent years – Crook Civic Centre, Meadowfield Direct Services, Green Lane in Spennymoor and Spectrum 8 in Seaham. This approach would make the most of the council’s property assets across the county and help to spread the economic impact of the council’s operations.
As many of you will know, the existing County Hall is a very large complex, developed in the 1960s when local government was very different. As well as being costly to run and maintain, it is too big for the current size of the council and if we move, we need to ensure that we develop more affordable and suitable accommodation, capable of meeting our future needs. This includes the County Records Office archive, where we are running out of space and need to improve storage.
Office workspace and working practices have moved on considerably since the council’s main offices were established, so we are also suggesting that if we move, the council should adopt more modern working practices which will improve the way we work, achieve cost savings and ensure that the moves are affordable.
The proposed move is clearly a major project and will take some time.
Next week, Cabinet will be asked to agree in principle to moving County Hall to Durham City centre to free-up our Aykley Heads site for job creation and investment. If Cabinet agrees, we would then develop an outline business case to look at potential options for the move.
Members would consider this towards the end of this year, and if they decide to proceed, we would then develop a detailed business case on their preferred option.
A final decision on that, would be made in Spring 2016, after which time we would begin planning in detail for the relocation and moves and changes to the way in which we would need to work.
If Cabinet agrees, then I envisage that we are looking at up to four years before we vacate County Hall and we start to see development work at Aykley Heads.
We will of course keep you informed as the proposals progress with regular updates and bulletins. We are already planning another round of CMT staff roadshows later this year, when we hope to be able to provide you with more detail, once Cabinet has considered the proposal next week.
Best wishes
George Garlick