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Durham County Council to review £50m headquarters

BBC The new HQ being builtBBC
The construction of Durham County Council's new riverside headquarters is due to be completed in October

A council which is spending £50m on a new headquarters is to review whether to move in after a leadership change.

Durham County Council's new cabinet said it would look again at the decision to move from 1960s-built County Hall on the outskirts of Durham to the new city centre site.

Labour lost control of the council to a coalition at the May local elections.

Deputy leader Richard Bell said the initial decision to move was "not without its controversy".

Unveiling the review to the cabinet of mixed independent, Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors, Mr Bell said the "strength of feeling" about the new headquarters in The Sands "still reverberates today".

"It has represented a significant financial commitment and it is a complex decision to unpack and reconsider," he said.

Google County HallGoogle
County Hall was built in the 1960s

The "substantially-built" new offices are due to be completed in October with the current Aykley Heads office mooted to become a business park, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Mr Bell said the review would be completed by September, adding: "Despite the time pressures, the review will be comprehensive and ensure appropriate due diligence.

"It will include an options appraisal for utilising the new headquarters for alternative use and the potential for the council to retain the existing County Hall as its headquarters."

History centre

The new cabinet has also agreed to review the future of the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) Museum collection the council is responsible for.

The DLI Museum closed in 2016 as part of cost-cutting measures with the collection split across museums around the county.

The council has submitted plans for a new £20m history centre at Mount Oswald Manor House which would house the DLI collection.

The new cabinet agreed to a review of the "options for the future storage, care and display of the DLI collection" including the proposed history centre to report by September.

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