Some Shropshire Council staff could be based in Shrewsbury shopping centres

The council is considering relocating to a new ‘civic centre’ in Shrewsbury town centre to act as a hub of council and other public sector services, after it was agreed that the proposed multi-million pound refurbishment of Shirehall could not bring the building up to scratch.

But council leader Peter Nutting told members at a meeting on Thursday that all options were on the table, including using parts of the shopping centres or building a new council headquarters when the Riverside is cleared.

He also said other buildings owned by the council elsewhere in the county, like Ludlow Assembly Rooms, could be used as satellite hubs.

Councillor Nutting said: “I have made it clear we do intend to spread the work of the council around the county – places like Ludlow, Bridgnorth, Oswestry. It’s important that there is a Shropshire Council presence in the market towns far more than there is at the moment.”

Describing Shirehall as a “big ugly lump of concrete,” Councillor Nutting said: “We need to move on and I think everyone accepts that.”

On the proposals to relocate into the town centre, he said: “I am very conscious that we are doing work on the Big Town Plan at the moment which is looking at the middle of Shrewsbury and how it works.

“Maybe we can use some of the buildings we already own in the town centre or there could be other places because we do intend to clear the Riverside and that would make an open brownfield site that could house something.

“There are quite a lot of options and I don’t think we want to corner ourselves too quickly.

“We have got some ideas but there are still people doing work on the Big Town Plan and I think that will help to give us an idea of the best way forward within Shrewsbury.”

'Investing around the county'

Turning to the market towns, Councillor Nutting said: “We are spending a lot of money in Ludlow at the moment on the Assembly Rooms.

“It could be that one or two of the parts of the Assembly Rooms could be used to house people from Shropshire Council or used as a meeting place for members in the south.

“It is quite a big building, it’s costing us a fortune to do up, far more than we realised, but it will be superb when it’s finished.

“We are investing around the county, we own buildings in many of the market towns and we need to use them far better than we do at the moment.”

Councillors supported the recommendations made in a report by Mark Barrow, director of place, to stop the Shirehall refurbishment project they approved in December 2018 and progress instead with plans to dispose of the building in favour of the new civic centre idea.

Councillor Steve Charmley, deputy leader and portfolio holder for assets, said the climate emergency and a shift in working behaviours due to the pandemic were the driving forces behind the change.

Steve Charmley: “The report sets out the proposal to stop all work in the Shirehall redevelopment and effectively condemn the building to history

“Members approved a previous council paper in December 2018 with a series of recommendations to refurbish Shirehall.

“Since that paper came to council we have declared a climate emergency, we have dealt with floods and the current Covid-19 pandemic.

“The climate emergency has exposed the inefficiencies of the building which were well documented at the time, and it’s come to light that it’s simply not viable to turn the building into the environmentally positive building which we all want in the current day.

“The running costs if the building are about £1.2 million a year so just in financial terms the viability is challenged.

“The current Covid-19 pandemic and the floods have focussed minds and changed the behaviours of ourselves and staff as a council on how we can operate in the future.”

Home working

Councillor Charmley said a recent staff survey had found that 85 per cent of those who took part were happy to continue working from home at least part time.

He said it was too early to make decisions about where the new civic centre will be or what it will be called.

Councillor Charmley said: “It may be that it is spread over several buildings in the town centre, it may be that it’s one building. That is still to be determined at this point as is the location.

“Part of the shopping centre complex may become part of that, that is all to be determined.”

Green Party Councillor Julian Dean said it was important to work out whether employees working from home during the winter, and heating their own homes, would be more carbon efficient than heating a large building, adding that it would be unfair to pass the cost of heating on to the staff.

He suggested a salary sacrifice initiative for retrofitting employee’s homes to improve their energy efficiency.

Councillor Dean Carroll, portfolio holder for climate change, said steps were already being taken towards launching a retrofitting scheme.

He added: “The potential carbon reduction benefits here are astronomical.

“Shirehall is one of our largest single points of carbon emissions.

“This is a really positive step in the right direction.”