Demolition of ‘liability’ council building will cost £2.5 million
The CLASP building at the County hall site, West Bridgford. Image credit: NCC
By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter
Demolishing a ‘liability’ Nottinghamshire County Council building is expected to cost £2.5 million.
The building, known as CLASP ( Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme), has sat at the side of County Hall in West Bridgford, the County Council’s headquarters before its move to Oak House this month, since 1965.
Early feasibility works have estimated the demolition of CLASP would cost approximately £2.5 million.
The authority plans to demolish the building as part of regenerating the County Hall site to make it “more attractive” to potential developers who may plan to redevelop the historic site.
Councillor Keith Girling (Con) said: “What we’re doing is clearing the site to make it more attractive for someone to come along and purchase the site.”
Cllr Girling called the building a ‘liability’.
He said: “While it’s up it’s a liability, open to be broken into – it’s cost effective to get rid of it completely.
“It’s over its use-by date and because of the asbestos, the removal of it, it puts the costs up quite considerably, but nothing in comparison to if we sold [the site] with the [CLASP] buildings up.
“Whenever we’ve negotiated with developers for them to develop, the developer put a big price on it, but using our trusted partners, the price [to demolish it] is a fair price.”
He added that demolition works could start “imminently” but how long the works will take will depend on what is found as works progress.
The CLASP building was originally built to have around a 50-year life expectancy.
Cllr Girling believes the County Hall site will better serve as two sites for developers.
He said: “I believe it’s probably beneficial to have two sites; County Hall as one site and [where the CLASP building stands] as another- I think it would maximise our return on it.”
County Hall currently costs more than £1.7 million to run each year.
Essential maintenance costs for the site exceed £30 million over the next 12 years, with an additional £28 million needed to bring it up to modern standards. The costs were behind the council’s decision to move to the new Oak House headquarters, near Top Wighay, close to Linby, this month.
The demolition of CLASP could lead to an annual revenue saving of £100,000 per year, the council says.
Explore more
