Wandsworth Council’s new Tory administration has said it will cost £240,000 to axe little-known plans to move staff from the borough’s town hall into rented offices.
The council’s Conservative leadership said it will cancel arrangements made while Labour controlled the authority, which would have seen its headquarters moved from Wandsworth Town Hall to rented offices in Nine Elms.
It said it will instead refurbish the town hall complex – the civic and administrative centre of Wandsworth – which includes a Grade II listed building and a 20th Century office building, known as the town hall extension.
Conservative councillor Peter Graham, Cabinet Member for Finance, said it was “beyond a surprise” for the administration to discover plans to move the council’s offices from the town hall, on Wandsworth High Street, to Nine Elms when it took over after winning the most seats in the local elections in May.
Councillor Graham told a meeting of the council last Wednesday night (July 22) it would cost taxpayers £240,000 to abandon arrangements that had been made to move staff to these offices.
A report on the initial outcomes of a spending review by the new administration said the council had a workspace strategy in 2022 to slash operational costs and generate funds to reinvest in services. The report said this involved plans to merge services in the town hall to allow surrounding offices to be sold off, which would have supported wider regeneration of the town centre.
It said these plans were instead paused and replaced by alternative options, which required finding another use for the town hall and moving staff to other sites.
Councillor Graham said: “The council owns the town hall, it pays no rent for using it. The option pursued was to pay rent, while leaving the town hall, a listed building, as a white elephant.
“The last administration employed an office headhunter in order to attempt to secure this office block, and we have now discovered that the contractual arrangements they entered into mean that not moving to the offices in Nine Elms will cost taxpayers £240,000 on aborting that office headhunter’s contract.”
Councillor Graham said the authority would instead refurbish the town hall to improve the environment for staff and boost the high street.
He said: “This administration will refurbish the town hall in order to boost Wandsworth town centre. We will restore civic pride, have a proper town centre strategy and get staff back to high-quality accommodation on this estate for the majority of the week.”
Labour councillor Simon Hogg, who led the previous administration, said the town hall extension was “probably the worst office building in Wandsworth”.
Councillor Hogg, now leader of the opposition, said: “Why do you think you will attract and retain the best staff to do the best job for you if they’re in the worst building in Wandsworth?”
He added: “It is a very sensible extravagance to invest in your workplace and your workforce, and I don’t think trying to turn this listed building into a modern, environmentally-compliant workplace is going to prove any cheaper than listening to the staff and doing what they want.”
