Council's Scarborough Building Move to Save £400,000 a Year and £19m in Repairs

North Yorkshire Council has approved the purchase of Resolution House on the outskirts of Scarborough to replace deteriorating town centre offices.

The move which said to be costing less than £4.5m is expected to save the authority up to £400,000 annually while providing modern facilities for staff and protecting public finances.The council say the alternative, staying put at the Scarborough Town Hall site, would require as much as £19m in repair work.

Members of the council's executive backed the purchase of Resolution House, located on the A64, to provide fit-for-purpose space for staff who do not need to be based in the heart of the town.

The authority says running costs for its inherited buildings are up to £1 million a year, with Scarborough Town Hall presenting major health and safety issues and leaving 80 per cent of its floor space unused.

Corporate director for resources, Gary Fielding, outlined the financial argument for the move.

He said:

"In terms of the business case, there's some simple numbers on this.

The condition of Scarborough Town Hall is appalling. It's clear that it's going to take 15 to 19 million pounds to do up the town hall.

To buy Resolution house is a maximum of four and a half million pounds, but is significantly less in practice.

There's 400,000 pounds a year savings by staff not being in the town hall but being in Resolution house and it's better accommodation.

Those are the simple metrics, so the business case is a quite straightforward one."

North Yorkshire Council's deputy leader, Councillor Gareth Dadd, whose responsibilities include property, emphasised the necessity of the purchase to protect public finances.

He said:

"I can assure you after a lifetime in business, the business case is robust and stacks up.

There's talk about a purchase price of four and a half million pounds. All I will say it is substantially lower than that price coupled with, as I said, the strong business case.

The alternatives are upwards of perhaps 19 or 20 million pounds to deal with the present office accommodation.

That is clearly not achievable nor desirable given we have a duty to protect the taxpayers buck."

Councillor Dadd also criticised the historic lack of investment in the current facilities.

He said:

"This issue has been long running. It's not just come to light over the last three weeks, this I dare suggest has been around for about three decades.

And again, we have been left to pick up the debris if I may say from inaction, for whatever reason, it might not have been deliverable by Scarborough Borough Council, but the time for action has come.

No longer can we sit as an authority and allow our staff to work in conditions that we've witnessed over the past six months. That must stop."

The council has provisionally agreed a price with Anglo American to purchase Resolution House, which was initially placed on the market with a guide price of £4.5 million. But the deal is time limited, hence the need for the council to move quickly to secure the deal.

Mr Fielding said:

"Resolution House was placed on the market earlier this year with a guide price of 4.5 million including fixtures and fittings.

However, the price that has been provisionally agreed with Anglo American is significantly lower than the guide price, on the understanding that the council progresses the acquisition swiftly and aims to complete the transaction by the end of March 2026.

All evidence indicates that the provisional purchase price represents extremely good value. Resolution House provides high quality, modern office accommodation. We therefore expect to move in without the need to incur significant costs beyond the acquisition price.

Given the significant opportunities this acquisition provides to address long-standing challenges and to deliver substantial financial benefits, we simply do not believe we can allow this opportunity to pass us by."

The deteriorating state of the town hall has been a long-standing challenge for previous administrations.

Councillor Liz Colling served as deputy leader of Scarborough Borough Council and now chairs North Yorkshire Council's local area committee for Scarborough and Whitby, she said the state of the building is no surprise:

"The office accommodation at the town hall has been an issue for successive SBC administrations and we've all sought to address it.  The offices are appalling, our staff should not have to work in those conditions.

But for LGR and a failed levelling up bid, we would have been in Pavilion House by now because the SBC administration that I was part of bought Pavilion House for that purpose.

However, we do have LGR and I can see the merits of the business case for moving the back office functions previously housed in Castle House in Scarborough and Malton to the one site."

Despite the move, the council has committed to keeping a central office base for staff who need to work in Scarborough town centre, alongside a customer service centre. A small number of staff will continue to operate from the Town Hall, while 100 staff currently working in Castle House will remain.

Councillors have also agreed to invest up to £750,000 to help progress redevelopment proposals on vacant sites and support the possible creation of new customer service points in Scarborough and Malton town centres.

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