Council House redevelopment

The Council House, our city centre headquarters, closed in December 2010 so that the building can be completely redeveloped. We intend to create an energy-efficient, fully accessible building with a fantastic customer service centre – one that will save us money in the long term. Main contractors BAM Construction and project managers Mace aim to complete the work by November 2012.

Progress of the redevelopment work

View the latest photographs of the building work at the bottom of this page. You can also watch some short films on our YouTube page which capture the redevelopment work in action:

• A computer-generated film showing the entire redevelopment process from start to finish, narrated by site manager Steve Roome of BAM Construction.
• A November 2011 film of work taking place in the inner courtyard, where the steelwork for the circular Council Chamber is being erected.
• A November 2011 film showing the work being done to preserve and showcase the beams and rafters on the second floor ceiling.

Why we're redeveloping the Council House

1. We couldn't continue using the building as it was.

The Council House was in desperate need of refurbishment. There was a £14 million maintenance backlog on the building, all the old windows and cast iron radiators needed replacing, for instance. If we'd continued to occupy the building we would have had to have done that maintenance work.

We could have spent £14 million to patch the building up – but it still would not have been fit for purpose. Instead we intend to refurbish and extend the Council House, which will mean…

2. We set an example of how to redevelop an historic and iconic city centre building – keeping what's best about the external façade of the building but totally modernising and updating the interior.

3. We invest in the city centre – regenerating the building and creating jobs at a time when unemployment in the city is set to rise.

4. We open up the building to our customers and the people of Derby – in several ways:

• We create a new customer service facility – a bigger, more open, more accessible space where customers will be able to get information and advice, and make payments, applications and appointments. It will be a ‘one-stop shop’ where members of the public can meet with other organisations too.
• We put democracy literally at the centre of the Council House – with a redesigned, fully accessible Council Chamber, visible throughout the building.
• We make the whole building compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

5. We use cutting edge initiatives to reduce the Council's carbon emissions – the redeveloped building will be designed to secure an ‘excellent’ rating under BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) and an ‘A’ rated Energy Performance Certificate. The cutting edge initiatives will include a hydro-power station on the river Derwent and adiabatic cooling. Adiabatic cooling is where a fine mist is blown into the building at night; as the mist evaporates, it consumes heat energy and rehydrates the air.

6. We save taxpayers significant amounts of money in the long term – by knocking down the internal walls and creating open plan office spaces, we can accommodate more than three times the number of people in the building, using the same footprint. This means we can move employees out of other (inefficient) office buildings, reducing the amount we spend on rented office space and on utilities.

By building an extra floor at the top of the building, we can also rent out space to partner organisations – meaning we can generate income.

Why it makes financial sense

In the long term, there are significant financial benefits to be gained from refurbishing the Council House and moving all our city centre staff into the building. The overall cost of refurbishing and extending the Council House was originally estimated at £34million - already we expect the final cost to come in lower than this.

We are effectively taking out a mortgage to redevelop the Council House, secured against our other properties, which will be paid back over a 40 year period.

To offset the costs of repaying this mortgage, we will make the following savings:

• Selling our St Mary's Gate and Roman House offices will generate around £4.6m – reducing the amount we need to borrow and saving us £305,000 a year.
• Moving out of leased buildings such as Heritage Gate and St Peter's House will save approximately £600,000 a year.
• Renting space in the refurbished Council House to partners will generate income of over £200,000 a year.
• Renting out space at other Council buildings once we all move into the Council House will generate income of over £75,000 a year.
• As a result of all the energy efficiency measures being built into the refurbished Council House, annual running costs are expected to be reduced by £150,000 a year.

These savings total £1.3m, meaning the cost of refurbishing the Council House is actually £0.92m a year.

If we just refurbished our current city centre buildings to a standard that would clear the maintenance backlogs, it would cost us £0.93m a year. This means we would spend more to stay in unsuitable office accommodation than it will cost us to refurbish and extend the Council House, giving our customers much better facilities and enabling more staff to work together under one roof.

Creating an open-plan space where all staff and services are based together is crucial to the delivery of our ‘one Derby, one council’ programme, which we anticipate will save us £20.8m over the next four years.

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