Agenda item

[Report of the Director for Customers, Transformation and Resources. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Cabinet Member for Finance and Strategic Regeneration.]

 

Update and recommendations on the Council Accommodation Strategy.

The report was introduced by the Cabinet Member for Finance and Strategic Regeneration who set out proposals to make best use of Council owned sites in Wood Green which were appropriate to facilitate a town strategy in order to develop civic functions, maximise the town centre, deliver new homes and jobs. The Council had been working with residents and businesses to develop a strategic framework for Wood Green through delivery of highly accessible places in Wood Green, the only remaining metropolitan town centre in London.

 

This was the first key decision on Woods Green, focusing on Council accommodation to enable footfall to the areas in Wood Green and unlock buildings and sites for other uses.

 

In response to questions from Cllr das Neves and Cllr Barnes, the following information was noted:

 

• There were a number of pieces of work completed by Officers, reviewing Council buildings in Wood Green, including the Civic centre, George Meehan House and River Park House, concentrating on maximisation. The Civic Centre was now a listed building and limited in its use and information on this was contained at paragraph 6 of the report. The Kingfisher site, in the Cultural centre was further considered for maximisation and the Wood Green library site considered as a main site and as a building for co – location of services. Further background information on this was contained in paragraph 6.

 

• Haringey was not unique in terms of using buildings, such as libraries, for multiple activities. In the main library, it was hoped that the proposals will enable better acoustic environment. Also locating Council services in close walking proximity had the resident in mind and provided improved provision of services in one area.

 

 

• In relation to focusing business locations on Station Road rather than the library site, this approach was taken further to considering which sites have the capacity and their attractiveness to potential businesses. There were strong commercial values associated with this approach and this was also based on professional advice.

 

RESOLVED

1. To agree to the principle of consolidating Council accommodation in Council owned sites in Wood Green to a reduced number of sites to deliver a better and more accessible service, realise cost savings, and provide a more effective working environment for staff, while also releasing land for other uses which will benefit the community and the town centre.

 

2. To note the results of the Council Accommodation Site Appraisal set out in section 4 and agree that further work should proceed on two options only: (1) the delivery of the Council Accommodation entirely on the Library site and (2) a split site solution which would include both the Library site and the Civic Centre site, recognising that alternative land use options for the remaining sites will also be developed.

 

3. To note that the next stage will involve engagement with stakeholders including Members, staff and service users bringing together existing workstreams, including the ‘New Ways of Working’ programme, to develop a vision and objectives for how the Council should deliver services in the future.

 

4. To note the potential opportunity to co-locate a Leisure Centre, which would include a swimming pool, with new Council Accommodation, and which could provide a wide range of benefits for the community, Council employees and partner agencies, and agree to the next stage of work to include further analysis of this opportunity.

 

Reasons for decision

 

Principle of consolidating Council owned sites

 

There is a clear business need for consolidating Council owned sites in Wood Green. Haringey Council owns nine buildings in Wood Green totalling more than 45,000m2 (GIA), and currently occupies eight of those buildings for its own accommodation. The area being used for Council accommodation purposes far exceeds the amount, which should be required by modern office standards.

 

There are significant operational costs associated with having Council accommodation in eight separate buildings. By consolidating the Council accommodation located in these sites, the Council has the potential to reduce office costs and release land, which can be used to deliver new community infrastructure, housing and employment on Council, owned sites as set out in the Borough Plan, and/or provide the Council with sources of capital and revenue funding.

 

The current office buildings along Station Road, at the Library Site and the Civic Centre are no longer fit for purpose or are in poor condition; they are inaccessible to some members of the public and need significant investment to improve health & safety, environmental and energy performance. Face to face, services to customers are provided over different buildings and none is particularly well designed, making for fragmented services and an unsatisfactory customer experience.

 

As such, the current offices do not support a modern working environment that promotes flexible workstyles, space for collaboration between Council staff, residents and partners or high levels of productivity. The consolidation of Council owned sites is an opportunity to enable all services to become fully accessible and create modern and fit-for-purpose facilities for staff, Members, customers, clients, and visitors. This optimal use of resources will both reduce spending on Council accommodation and improve efficiency in delivering services resulting in improved value for money for the Council.

 

Council Accommodation Site Appraisal

 

The principle of consolidating Council owned sites in Wood Green to save on the Council’s revenue costs, reduce the amount of space the Council occupies, and its carbon footprint was first presented to Cabinet in October 2016.

 

The existing Council accommodation was considered to be deteriorating, expensive to run and no longer fit for purpose and as no one building was of sufficient size to accommodate the requirements of the Council in the future the aim was to have one main Council office for the majority of staff to act as a focal point for the public and Council facilities.

 

The vision was to create a new Council Accommodation building with a variety of modern, fit for purpose and cost-effective workspaces and facilities to enable staff to work more effectively, flexibly and collaboratively with colleagues and partners.

 

Under the previous administration, the intention was to rationalise the existing office estate from (then) 12 sites to two sites; this included a proposal to vacate the Civic Centre. This vision was partially realised through the refurbishment of George Meehan House (formerly Woodside House) which now accommodates the Council’s ceremonial and registrar functions.

 

The Borough Plan sets out a commitment to use Council land and assets to promote improved outcomes for residents and with this commitment, combined with Historic England’s decision to Grade II list the Civic Centre, the Council has taken a step back from previous proposals to considered all its Wood Green assets to identify the best location for the new Council Accommodation.

 

A Council Accommodation Site Appraisal has been carried out which considers the suitability of four sites in Wood Green in terms of their capacity to accommodate all the Council functions, financial feasibility and against a set of qualitative criteria relating to deliverability, accessibility and contribution to the town centre.

 

The option, which scored the overall highest, was the one, which puts all Council accommodation on the Library Site. The second highest scoring option was a ‘split site’ solution using the Library Site and the Civic Centre site. The recommendation to Cabinet is that further feasibility work is carried out on these two options only; further separate studies will also be carried out to establish the best strategy for the remaining sites.

 

New Ways of Working (NWoW) Transformation Programme

 

In October 2016 Cabinet approved funding to develop The Future Ways of Working Programme with delivery streams ‘People’, ‘Process’, ‘Place’ and ‘Technology’ to support the delivery of the Corporate Plan and the Council of the Future, providing a skilled, agile workforce, aligned to the Council’s values. The programme vision was that “Our People will be empowered to work from anywhere with streamlined Processes, improved Technology and a Place to collaborate with colleagues and partners in order to deliver improved, more responsive and high-quality services.”

 

Currently, The Future Ways of Working Programme, now the New Ways of Working Programme, is one of several transformation programmes being delivered across the Council which together aim to enable a more flexible and effective approach to how staff deliver services, where they deliver them from and to ensure that the new Council Accommodation is efficient, fit for purpose and aligned to the future size of the Council.

 

Part of the current stage of the NWOW programme includes the detailed design and initiation of a series of Pilot Projects which will take place with full engagement with stakeholder groups to understand how the programme can deliver fit for purpose and cost-effective workspaces that enable staff to work more effectively, flexibly and collaboratively with colleagues and partners.

 

The next stage will bring together existing workstreams, including the NWoW transformation programme and will involve engagement with Members, staff and service users to develop the vision and objectives in line with the new Borough Plan priorities.

 

Leisure Centre

 

The delivery of a new leisure centre with a 25-metre main pool and smaller teaching pool is the top strategic priority of Haringey’s ‘Indoor Sports Facility Strategy’, which is supported and signed off by Sport England and Swim England and is also due to be formally adopted by Cabinet this month.

 

A well-located Leisure Centre in the heart of Wood Green will undoubtedly attract previously inactive and partially active local adults and children to adopt a more physically active lifestyle. This will lead to improvements in health and wellbeing that in turn will deliver much social and economic benefit.

 

In addition to the health and social value benefits, a leisure centre will also drive footfall into Wood Green, with the visitor numbers to a leisure centre, based at the library site, estimated at 638,000 per annum. Improving the leisure offer in the town centre will help to revitalise the town centre and improve its competitiveness and economic growth prospects.

 

The Library site has been identified as both the best location for the Council Accommodation (through the Council Accommodation Site Appraisal) and the Leisure Centre (through a separate Leisure Centre Study) and so the opportunity to co locate these two facilities has been considered and should be explored further in the next feasibility stage.

 

Alternative options considered

 

All options have been set against a “do nothing” option which is the cost that the Council currently incurs running the eight buildings. These costs include all management, maintenance, utilities, rates and other costs in occupying these buildings including a provision for major cyclical repairs such as lifts / roofs etc.

 

Remaining in current buildings and not investing in Council owned sites in Wood Green would be detrimental to Wood Green town centre. The poor quality of the existing buildings is impacting on the wellbeing and productivity of our workforce, as well as the Civic pride in the borough. Buildings on Station Road currently provide minimal contribution to the town centre at ground floor level, and by occupying key employment sites the Council is actively restricting economic growth.

 

A range of redevelopment options have been explored through several studies and they have been assessed against quantitative and qualitative criteria. As well as considering redevelopment, officers have considered the option to stay in the existing buildings and options to reuse existing buildings through a programme of refurbishment.

 

The Council Accommodation Site Appraisal scoring matrix methodology is described in paras 6.10 – 6.35.

 

The option of remaining in River Park House has been considered through the financial feasibility studies which include refurbishment scenarios. River Park House was acquired from BT, and was not designed to house the current number of occupants, or to cope with the range of visitors that a Council may receive. In particular, the main entrance is not fit for purpose, and cannot be redesigned except at great cost. Because of its poor design it causes an unwelcoming experience for guests and creates security problems for building users.

 

The option of redeveloping the River Park House site to build new Council accommodation has not been considered further because this site is one of the most accessible sites in the borough and should new office space be built on this site it has the potential to attract major new employers, it is not considered to be the best use of the land to build new offices for the Council on this site.

 

The option to secure a new Leisure Centre on an alternative site not in the Council’s ownership was considered in the Leisure Centre Feasibility which has identified that the costs of either acquiring a site from a third party or funding the annual costs of leasing a site would create an additional financially unsustainable cost over and above the financing of a new centre.