As jobs and investment fly out of the window on a daily basis in these dire financial times, there may be those who will have a sharp intake of breath at the news that Herefordshire Council wants to spend £17 million on new offices.
Certainly, a perceived need to find somewhere to accommodate 1,275 workstations – itself needing a significant leap of the imagination to envisage – for 1,600 full time equivalent council staff, is directly against the present economic trends as most people would understand them.
But a report to this week’s council cabinet meeting points out that the offices will be shared with staff from NHS Herefordshire, and that debate about where the new site would be has been going on since June 2005.
In 2008 a watchdog scrutiny committee recommended a full options appraisal, and consultants Knight Frank were taken on to look at a range of options, including various combinations involving Rotherwas, Bath Street, Gaol Street and Blackfriars Education Centre.
Against a number of parameters such as running costs, IT line networks, internal courier services, inter-office travel and car parking, Plough Lane – now ultimately owned by Heineken after the takeover of Scottish & Newcastle, who in turn had bought original site owners Bulmers Cider – came out the preferred choice.
The current owners of Plough Lane have agreed to sell the office site, along with part of their storage capacity, which is just as well, as the existing lease with the council expires in December 2010.
And there are a number of associated projects that can benefit alongside the Plough Lane move, including new city centre services under one roof, new ICT data centres, new public records facilities and, perhaps somewhat mysteriously, “a review of the future use of the Shire Hall and Town Hall to ensure continued effective use of these two landmark buildings”.
At the end of the day, the council says it has the money, and that borrowing £14.7 million – with £2.3 million in capital reserves – is within its Medium Term Financial Management Strategy.
No doubt council tax payers will be as keen to see benefits coming out of the new offices, as they will hope the council has its figures right.
