£12 Million New Office Folly

12.00.00am GMT Tue 28th Jan 2003

Should Mid-Beds District Council spend nearly £12 Million on new offices at Chicksands and demolish the offices at Ampthill and Biggleswade?

Liberal Democrats on Mid-Beds District Council strongly oppose this move as we do not believe it has been thoroughly costed. A payback period of 10+ years is predicted due to notional efficiency savings, but this is meaningless since Local Government will have changed significantly by 2014.

The Ampthill offices are only 14 years old, and would have to be demolished to realise their asset value as a building site.

Among the reasons given for this folly are that Chicksands would make a suitable centralised office site, which would improve efficiency, and that new Disabled Access requirements for offices would mean a complete re-build.

We strongly oppose centralised, out of town, offices. Mid-Beds has been criticised for being too inward looking, and not looking outward to the needs of the taxpayers it serves. Centralised offices would only make this worse. It is taxpayers' capital, a windfall from Council house sales, which would pay for these offices.

The Biggleswade offices are very sub-standard and do need replacing. This would probably cost £6 million-leaving £6 million that could be spent on desperately needed facilities throughout the District, benefitting the taxpayer.