Campaigners put council move to new headquarters ‘at risk’

The council’s £12.4m plans to sell historic Crescent Gardens – for use as a boutique hotel – as well as four other buildings, and centralise operations at a single location on a newly built site at the old police station on North Park Road, have sparked fury since first being voted through in February.

A cross-party group of 16 former mayors – including the mayor of the borough for 2011-2012, Coun Less Ellington – have written an open letter opposing the move, while the influential Harrogate Civic Society and the opposition Liberal Democrats group have also raised concerns, claiming proper process had not been followed as it was agreed by cabinet a day before it appeared before the authority’s overview and scrutiny committee.

Originally the council hoped that it would be able to get around any planning restraints imposed on the police station, by retaining one of its sites at Springfield House for some staff to remain.

However, a report due to go before the council’s cabinet on Wednesday, has warned that the application to list the building could result in English Heritage wanting to retain more than just the frontage of the station – making this option “less feasible”.

Now the council is set to employ a firm of consultants to look at the possibility of taking over 4,200m2 of office space from the nearby Harrogate International Centre (HIC), which is owned and operated at arm’s length by the local authority.

The report also says work is to begin on investigating the possibility of an early sell-off of one of the council’s sites at Knapping Mount, to support project costs of the accommodation move.

Henry Pankhurst, the chair of the Harrogate Civic Society, said: “Anything that helps the council to do something that we think is more sensible is to be welcomed.

“We do not want to see the police station completely demolished because we do think that the building has some merit.

“We hope English Heritage is going to go down that route as well.”

Local authority chiefs maintain the centralisation of services is fundamental to ensure the council’s economic future amid savage public sector cutbacks following the coalition Government’s austerity drive.

The council believes the cost of loans for the new premises will be financed from the savings it makes by moving and that the new premises will make it more accessible.

Coun Anthony Alton, the leader of Harrogate Borough Council, said: “The council has made a decision to move to the former police station site at North Park Road.

“The report to council in February this year set out what would happen if the council were not in a position to achieve its primary objective of total office relocation to North Park Road or we couldn’t sell Springfield House.

“If either of these cases transpired, then the council would receive a further report to decide whether it should redevelop North Park Road to meet part of its accommodation objectives and retain Springfield House thereby reducing its current number of administrative offices in Harrogate down from five to two.

“However, as we are now awaiting the outcome of the Secretary of State’s decision regarding the listing of all or part of North Park Road,

“Cabinet is asking the council’s officers to use the time available to consider a further option to see whether we can make use of part of the HIC site.

“This investigation will allow us further knowledge about what might be possible for future redevelopment at HIC, whether the move to North Park Road goes ahead or not.”