Falkirk Council proposal to relocate its municipal buildings workers to Larbert

A meeting of the full council on Wednesday includes a proposal to move staff into the former Thomas Cook call centre – a modern office building that is already owned by Falkirk Council.

The report says they will find it hard to find another tenant in the current circumstances and paying rates on the empty premises would cost the council £120,000.

If agreed, other staff would move to Falkirk Stadium where an empty suite of offices will be fitted out at a cost of £1.5 million.

Moving into more modern offices, however, would mean a saving of £480,000 every year as the plan would also mean the closure of Sealock House in Grangemouth, Denny Town House and Abbotsford House in Bainsford.

Moving staff into ready-built offices mean plans for a replacement town hall for Falkirk – with a new library, cafe and advice hub under the same roof – can be brought in for under the £43 million that the council already has earmarked for the project in its capital budget.

The new centre would retain some office spaces, dependent on the design chosen.

Last year, Labour and Conservative councillors refused to back plans to build a new arts centre and council HQ at a cost of £53 million and asked officers to go back to the drawing board to find a plan that was within the original £45 million budget.

The SNP administration had championed the proposals, saying they were vital to regenerating the ailing town centre of Falkirk.

Since then, the coronavirus pandemic has sped up the decline of town centre shopping; Callendar Square owners had announced its closure although there are understood to be ongoing talks with an interested party, while Ellandi the owners of Falkirk’s Howgate shopping centre say they are looking at ‘repurposing the centre’.

Falkirk Council leader, Cecil Meiklejohn, believes a new arts centre is now even more vital to helping Falkirk town centre make the transformation from retail to mixed purpose.

“While there is flux around Covid, this won’t last forever and we need to start to look at what may be in a year or two year’s time to what our needs will be,” she said.

“Arts will be very, very important to local people and will be a great attraction to bring people into a town and that will certainly act as a catalyst.

“We have a lot of interest from private developers who are looking at Falkirk and recognising the location is very fortuitous, being half way between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

“They are waiting to invest but they are waiting to see what the council does to make their commitments.

“We know that retail is shrinking and more and more people are shopping online – we need to recognise that our indecision is having an impact on others and holding our town centre back.”

Mrs Meiklejohn now hopes that the new package will attract the support it needs from Labour and Conservative groups.

“It’s very much a package but it comes within the £45 million cap, it will help us reduce carbon emissions and it will allow staff to relocate in a modern way of working,” she said.

“I think it’s a very good package and I truly hope the others will support us so we can take a significant step forward.”