Council considers temporary staff move

Council staff could move to the George Ward School site in Melksham when refurbishment works starts on council offices next year.

Cabinet is being asked to approve a proposal to move employees to the school site when major refurbishment works start at its administrative buildings in Trowbridge and Devizes, when it meets on Tuesday (April 20).

George Ward School pupils will vacate the site and move into the new Melksham Oak Community School in July this year.

The George Ward site would allow staff from county Hall and Browfort to be relocated at the same time. This would enable building work to be completed in two phases over two years.

The refurbishments, which will start in early 2011, form part of a three-year ‘workplace transformation’ programme, reducing the number of council offices from around 95 across the county to four main hubs – County Hall in Trowbridge, Browfort in Devizes, Monkton Park in Chippenham and Bourne Hill in Salisbury.

The plans for County Hall include a new Trowbridge library and reference library and café-style restaurant for customers and staff.

The improvements to both sites would reduce the buildings’ carbon footprints and modernise office space to support more flexible ways of working. 

As well as improving technology to support mobile working so officers can spend more face-to-face time with customers, the workplace transformation programme will save the council £85.1 million over the next 25 years.

No customer-facing services would move to Melksham. In west Wiltshire these would be based at the council offices on Bradley Road in Trowbridge, while plans are being developed for customer services at Browfort during refurbishment.

The council will produce a transport strategy to support staff to travel to Melksham which will ensure those without cars are provided for, possibly through providing a staff bus linking Trowbridge, Melksham and Devizes.

Carlton Brand, corporate director for resources, said: “The planned improvements for County Hall and Browfort are extremely exciting but we are keen to minimise any disruption to customers and staff during the construction work.

“Temporarily relocating people to George Ward School presents significant advantages over any alternative options, including decanting smaller numbers of staff to a number of smaller locations across the area, which would increase the duration and complexity of the building works.

“The cost of refurbishing the site as office accommodation is comparable to the cost of leasing alternative premises, with the extra benefits of only having one site to manage and connect to our ICT networks and a reduction in the overall running.”