By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
No major repair or maintenance work will take place at Mansfield Civic Centre until the district council knows whether its bid for a new town centre headquarters has been successful.
The Labour-led authority has submitted a £20m business case to Government to transform the former Beales site, on Stockwell Gate and Queen Street, into a public sector ‘hub’.
If successful, the Levelling Up Fund bid could see the council leave its current Chesterfield Road South site and move into the town centre alongside other authorities, including potentially Nottinghamshire County Council.
But the authority’s early budget papers reveal the council has pencilled in planned works at its current Civic Centre base for the 2025/26 financial year.
The works include £200,000 for lift replacements and £30,000 to replace an automatic door.
However, councillors on the authority’s corporate resources scrutiny committee meeting were told these works will not take place until the council knows whether it will remain at the Civic Centre.
Speaking in the meeting on Tuesday (November 1), Dawn Edwards, the authority’s head of finance, said: “Some of the works to the Civic Centre have been in the capital programme in previous years but we are deferring that.
“We’re asking to roll the budget forward into the next financial year and then deferring it again until the decision has been made on the future of this building, where we will operate from and whether we will move to the old Beales building or not.
“We don’t want to be spending huge amounts of money on this building unless it’s absolutely necessary and until the decision has been made.
“At the minute we have not committed [to anything] and we’re staying in this building until the Levelling Up Fund bid is confirmed.”
In response, Councillor Terry Clay (Lab), who represents the Brick Kiln ward, raised some concerns and said the authority should “keep on top” of maintaining the Civic Centre while it is still occupied.
He said: “The problem I’ve got is that the building is still stood here at the moment and we’ve got to do the maintenance.
“If we don’t keep on top of it, the bill’s going to get higher and higher each year.”
Ms Edwards said the council doesn’t plan to do any “excessive works” to the building, adding: “Anything from a health and safety point of view, we would have to do.”
Councils waiting to find out if their Levelling Up Fund bids have been successful will find out “by the end of this year”, a Government spokesperson has confirmed.
Other Nottinghamshire bids include a £40m link road in Toton, plans to transform the former Broad Marsh site in Nottingham, improvements to transport in Hucknall and a new leisure centre and theatre in Arnold.
If Mansfield District Council’s bid is successful, it would require major works to take place inside the former Beales department store.
Assessments of the building have already begun and identified vertical and horizontal cracks, corroding steel and out-of-line concrete panels in part of the building.
It could also see the pedestrian bridge connecting the building to the Four Seasons Shopping Centre demolished, with a discount retailer confirmed for the part of the former Beales shop inside the centre this week.
