A huge refurbishment of Bury Town Hall is planned with hundreds of council workers transferring from other nearby buildings to work there over the next few years. Bury’s Council’s cabinet today approved the strategy which would mean a phased project to create ‘higher quality office space in the Town Hall’ and ‘a single service hub for council services’.
As part of the plans the council will transfer the council’s lease obligation for nearby 3 Knowsley Place, where many council employees now work, to Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust. The lease costs the council pays currently for 3 Knowsley Place amount to £1.028m per year.
As part of the deal to transfer the lease to Pennine Care Bury Council would also pay a capital contribution of £1.450m to Pennine towards their fit-out costs. The council has also agreed with Pennine to provide 100 parking spaces for their staff at a rent of £20.4k a year. A report to cabinet gave the reasoning for the town hall improvement project.
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It said: “The preferred option is to undertake a phased refurbishment of the Town Hall. “This will create higher quality office space and will also allow for a phased decant of staff from 3 Knowsley Place timed to align with the availability of newly refurbished space.
“Consultation with the public, staff and trade unions on the approved preferred option has demonstrated overall support for the proposals.
“Negotiations with Pennine have progressed and an agreement in principle for the trust to take over the lease of 3 Knowsley Place from the council but to enable the council to retain occupancy of floors 3 and 4 until the phased refurbishment allows staff to move to the town hall, is expected to be in place by the end of April.”
The council will now tender for a team to bid for the design of the scheme, commission necessary structural surveys and prepare a detailed financial analysis and investment case for the improvements. The council said that by summer of this year they would identify full construction costs and the impact on their capital programme along with the revenue impact of borrowing and present that to the cabinet.
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