New Telford council offices ‘will save millions’
Thursday 24th March 2011, 7:42PM GMT.
New eco-friendly offices for council bosses in Telford will save the taxpayer £3.5 million over three years, it was claimed today.
Chiefs at Telford & Wrekin Council said they had been told they would have to fork out £3.5 million if they wanted to remain in their current building, instead of moving to the new Southwater development in 2013.
Inspectors carried out a survey on the Civic Office, built in the 1970s, and said it would cost millions to replace the roof, windows, ceilings, install a new heating system, resurface roads and other work to bring it up to modern day standards.
Instead, the council will move to the £250 million Southwater development and is expected to save a further £265,000 every year in running costs.
Council leader Andrew Eade said: “The existing Civic Office is nearing the end of its economic life.”
UK News
Most Commented
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
- The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff doesn't raise a smile
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
I always get a little worried when somebody tells me that by spending £250 million they are going to save £3.5 million over 3 years, which equates to approx, £1.17 million per year.
If the current offices are in such a poor state of repair that this much has to be spent on keeping them up to standard (who defines the standard) then why not spend a little more on revamping what they have – say £20 million and then the savings would be massive overall for the entire community, somewhere in the region of £230 million
The council could then maintain its current level of (poor) service and would not have to shed the hundreds of jobs it claims it will have lose because of its cuts in funding from central government (tax payers to give the true source of the funds)
Or do they just want a nice shinny new building??
More warm milk and medication please nurse
Report abuse
Nice toasters. 3.5 million over what period of time?, as opposed to £250 million (and the rest!) over the next couple of years. Vast expense at a time when the council is shedding hundreds of jobs which will impact on the community through loss of services. How does your sustainability unit view the demolition of a functioning, if a little dated, building and the construction of a brand new development. It’s not as if many local jobs will be created through the construction process as most of the contractors are not local. And of course the creation of new shop units, which will simply serve to empty another part of the town centre, require paying customers!!!. I trust this administration will be short lived. Yours, as ever. Brian
Report abuse
30 years and the buildings at the end of its life??? By house is 300 years old!
Report abuse
These figures were published in September. According to the Press Release then they will save £3.25M on refurbishment, £3.1M on repairs and maintenance over the next 10 years and £105K annually on energy.
The claim is that the cost of the new building are more than covered by the receipt for the sale of the old site but I don’t believe that the value of the new site has ever been published. How much would they have received for the new site had they sold it with the planing permission etc. My suspicions are that this would have been in excess of the figure they got for the old site. I guess we will never know, in the same way that we will never really know whether or not the anticipated savings on running and refurb costs are realistic.
Report abuse
It’s just not the right time! Don’t they get it?
Cake for them, just the scraps from the bird table for us.
And how much did this ‘inspection’ cost?
Report abuse
Several million has already been spent on this, so no savings. Funny how this comes out after the administration refuses to comment on Brookside, it shows us all that your community can suffer but they must have new offices.
Report abuse
If it saves the council £265,000 a year then it will only take about 950 years before the development pays for itself!
Report abuse
isn’t the sale of buildings to asda actually paying for most of this? And to the moaners the 250m isnt all council money alot of private investment has been put into this project
Report abuse
@ Jayne.
Do you not get it, NOW is exactly the right time to build. Builders are desperate for work and prices will be very competative.
It will be up to council inspectors to make sure that the builders don’t cut corners to claw back on that competative price.
The council have allready sold their existing offices to asda so they have to move.
What bothers me is the amount of figures being bandied about on the amount of £millions that will be saved by having the new buiding. They all seem to be randomly plucked out of the air on a whim.
Report abuse
The figures are being plucked out of thin air in a hapless PR exercise being “masterminded” by Andrew Eade. Andrew claims that the council has “some money left over” from the sale to Asda. How does he know whats “left over”? The new offices haven’t even been built yet! No one will answer these questions, even though I have asked it twice publically and many times privately: HOW MUCH DID THEY GET FROM ASDA and WHEN DID THEY GET IT? I don’t believe the Council has yet received a penny. They have borrowed the money to get the thing going ahead of vacating their existing offices. Only having vacated the premises in time will they get any money from Asda! TELL ME I AM WRONG ANDREW!!!
Report abuse
It’s not just about energy efficiency, but the cost of upgrading an older building to comply with new legislation and also to maintain and replace items many of which went out of production years ago. You simply wouldn’t believe the costs involved, but I’ve seen them for a building of a similar age and design and frankly, they do make you think that it would be cheaper to just build afresh – and these costs are ongoing. I only have to look at the windows and roof of the existing civic offices to cringe at the thought of what costs are being and will be, incurred.
Report abuse
as usual, with these boards, not much apart from moaning, if the people offering suggestions spent as much energy and thoughts on improving the town etc then it would be a much better place, actually, let the town crumble, stifle any investment and let the younger people go and find housing and jobs elsewhere and spend their social time and money lining the pockets of other towns and cities, good luck telford, your going to need it.
Report abuse
This is the logic that my wife uses. On the weekend she saved £30. She could have bought one pair of shoes, but instead bought another and so saved £30. I suggested that she should do that every week and after a year we would have 52x£30 = over £1500 saved and we could go on a nice holiday.
Report abuse
Marco, does she work for the council? If not she should apply for post as CEO, she is well qualified by the sounds of it.
Report abuse
Well my little house is over 70 years old and needs a lck of paint and some new wood work, so I think I will follow Telford Councils example and sell the old place off to a supermarket and from the many hundreds of thousands, that I should save over the next few years, I can build a little mansion somehwere and have enough money left for a world cruise…simples …why didn’t I think of it before?…I can foresee a large upturn in the housing market coming up, if everyone else does the same.
Report abuse
good on them, i wish shropshrie council was half as good with energy (and therefore money) saving initiatives
Report abuse