Question mark over future of Northumberland council buildings in the post-covid world

That is a question that has been raised in at least two of the authority’s recent committee meetings to discuss the Covid-19 response and recovery plan.

One of the reports on the pandemic revealed that the number of staff working from home or remote locations increased rapidly to more than 2,500, which represents around 60% of the total workforce.

Currently, around 40% are working fully from home, while another 20% are working partly from home and partly from offices or other locations.

At the Wednesday, July 15, meeting of the communities and place committee, the chairman, Cllr Jeff Reid, said: “It raises the question of whether we need big buildings, if people are happy to work from home and are still getting the job done, which they obviously have been.

“I haven’t had one resident phone me with complaints about how the council has dealt with this and normally you get people complaining about the slightest thing.”

The council’s chief executive, Daljit Lally, responded: “Things will never go back to what they were, but we will take the best bits forward.”

Northumberland County Council’s main base has been a hot topic in recent years.

The previous Labour administration had controversially planned to build a new £40million HQ on the Portland Park site in Ashington, insisting it would involve more staff being based at different bases around the county.

This plan was scrapped when the Conservatives took power after the May 2017 elections, with the Tories deciding instead to spend money on refurbishing County Hall in Morpeth.

The first stage of this project – £2.7million to repair and upgrade the outside of the building – was agreed in February 2018, before another £4million was signed off in November that year for work to the day-to-day working areas, as well as the front-of-house changes which received planning permission in March this year.

The latest council budget, approved in February, included another £11.85million for works over the next three years.

In June 2018, it was also reported that the scrapped plans to relocate the headquarters had already cost at least £3.5million – £1.4million in compensation for the contractor and £2.1million on designing the new offices before the scheme was dropped.

Another £2.1million was being spent on ongoing plot development works, although much of this will support the current proposal for the site – a cinema and retail development, which received planning permission at the start of the year.

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