Ashton Town Hall: Images show scale of damage to historic town hall

New images of crumbling ceilings and rotting beams have laid bare the challenges of repairing a Grade II listed town hall.

Tameside Council is planning to repair Ashton Town Hall in Ashton-under-Lyne after winning nearly £20m in Levelling Up funding in 2021.

Planning documents reveal the scale of the works needed to restore the iconic building in Market Street which opened in 1840 to its former glory.

The site has been closed since 2015.

Ashton Town Hall houses the Civic Hall, which contains the former full council chamber, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Currently full council meetings take place at Dukinfield Town Hall and Guardsman Tony Downes House in Droylsden.

Reports had previously revealed "significant damage" occurred when the physical link between the town hall and the Tameside Administrative Centre (TAC) was disconnected to demolish the centre and clear the site.

Now a planning application for listed building consent from the council's development partner Robertson North West has been lodged.

The proposed enabling works include a temporary rainwater diversion to facilitate the drying of saturated external masonry, scaffolding and tenting methodology, additional ceiling penetrations to provide access for intrusive roof timber surveys and removal of the ballroom timber stage intervention.

A structural survey with the application states some parts of the building have become "dangerous" and internally "rationalisation/remedial work is required in several areas".

It also said: "Some crudely implemented and apparently incomplete structural openings will require repair or reconstruction."

A heritage document has outlined numerous outbreaks of both wet and dry rot to parts of the building.

The timber stair leading from the stage to the intervention mezzanine changing rooms adjacent has been condemned by the structural engineer and "existing timber landings and stair treads have rotten through and failed making it unsafe", it said.

Bosses had planned to reopen the town hall as part of phase three of the Vision Tameside project, but the collapse of construction firm Carillion in 2018 delayed works.

A decision on the application is expected to be made after mid-May.

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