Shropshire Councillors will be asked to approve moving to the next stage of plans to refurbish and redevelop Shirehall at a meeting on Thursday.

A report was due to be considered by Council earlier this year, but it was agreed to take the report to a later meeting to allow councillors to fully consider the proposals before making a decision.

At their meeting this week, councillors will be asked to approve the refurbishment in principle of the entire Shirehall building, subject to a further report to be considered by Cabinet with a final business case, developed designs and final project budget. They will also be asked to approve the addition of £1.15m to the capital programme to support Stage 3 of the project with delegation to the Director of Place to oversee the production of the final business case.

In July 2017, a specialist team of architects and property specialists considered options to reconfigure and refurbish Shirehall in order to meet the council’s priorities. In December 2017 Cabinet considered their feasibility report and agreed, in principle, to move forward the option of refurbishing the entire building.

The necessary due diligence and feasibility work around this option stage 2 has now been completed and councillors will now be asked to approve the spending of £1.15m capital funding to support the next, detailed design stage of the development which moves it to stage 3.

Stage 3 of the work will see more detailed designs and costs worked up and an application for planning approval made, as well as work on the strategy to procure the contractors for the final refurbishment work, before a detailed project budget, developed designs and a full business case are presented to full Council in March/April 2019.

If approved, work is set to be completed by autumn 2021.

The overall cost of the project is estimated to be £24.1m but this spend is set to be met by the proposed income generation and savings, with a yield of 7% anticipated.

Steve Charmley, deputy leader of Shropshire Council, said:

“These plans offer a huge range of opportunities. They’ll make Shirehall better suited to modern working, providing our staff with a much improved place to work. They’ll save us money while reducing the cost of heating, lighting and maintaining the building, and will create income-generating opportunities for Shropshire Council through us acting as landlord for some of our public sectors partners. By creating a ‘Civic Hub’ Shirehall will also become much more accessible to the public and the local community.

“With the money spent set to be earned back through the savings and income generated, and a with a yield of 7% expected, this will be an excellent investment.”

Subject to Council approval on 13 December, the project will proceed to phase 3, and further option appraisal work would also be undertaken by officers to ensure that the best value option is secured for the council.