During last week’s full council meeting, we tweeted about the fact that the council chamber had undergone a refurbishment.
As we entered the chamber for the meeting, we were met with the smell of paint and new carpet, resulting in lots of “ooos” and “ahhhs” from the media table.
Gone was the quality bespoke furniture and in had come the cheap-looking office furniture.
VB‘s done some digging to find out the cost of the works.
‘Them and Us’
Instead of the desks positioned in a crescent facing towards the front where the chairman, etc sit, the desks are now facing in towards the centre, creating a clear ‘them and us’ stance.
The Tory majority on one side – Independents, Lib Dem and Labour on the other.
New audio equipment welcomed
It wasn’t just the walls, carpet and furniture that’d had a re-vamp. Gone was the previous audio equipment, used (when it worked) to help project the voices of speakers in the chamber, in came the up-to-date swanky new wireless equipment (and not before time).
Readers of our tweets may remember the start of the full council meeting being delayed due to the councillors being trained on how to use the new system.
From where we were sitting (audio equipment was available on the press table – but without a microphone, we hasten to add) it looked fairly simple to use. As with the old system, just press the big button on the box when you want to speak, if the red light comes on, away you go (perhaps it was more complex than it looked).
Why the change?
Naturally, we got to wondering what the cost of this refurb was.
We can understand the need to update the audio equipment, but we’re living in times of austerity and cuts are being made across the council, so why would they decide to spend what looked like thousands of pounds on replacing perfectly good furniture?
Part of the wide remodelling
The council told us that the work was part of the wider remodelling of County Hall (at a cost of up to £4 million) and that removing the custom furniture and replacing it with desks on wheels would mean the space could become multi-purpose.
This, we’re told, would lead to the council not having to hire out external spaces for large meetings or indeed they could hire out the chamber to others.
A spokesperson told VB, “Had there not been sound financial reasons for undertaking the work then it would not have been done.”
The costs
So we expect you’re all wondering what the cost of this refurb was.
The council told VB that the total cost came to £120,939.
This breaks down to
- 30 desks and 60 chairs £21,570
- New Audio Visual equipment £63,709
- Carpet £4,140
- Electrical work, stripping out, redecoration and servicing of the heating system £31,519.08
If you attend the next full council meeting (Wednesday 19th October), you’ll get to see the refurb in person.
Image: Kevin Dooley under CC BY 2.0
