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Public services in Newport could benefit from the city council moving to a new headquarters, a councillor believes.
Newport City Council has previously looked into relocating from the Civic Centre to a smaller premises, details released under a Freedom of Information Act request show.
A council spokesman said a potential relocation is no longer on the cards – but Conservative councillor David Fouweather claimed the local authority should give serious consideration to the benefits of finding a new home.
He said any new council HQ would “have to be” a central location in Newport, which would have the added bonus of helping “boost city centre trade at lunchtimes”.
The historic Westgate Hotel or the former Admiral building could both prove to be suitable locations, he suggested.
A recent Freedom of Information Act request, by Conservative campaigner Michael Enea, found it cost the council around £1.05 million to run the Civic Centre last year.
The response also showed there were typically between 200 and 350 staff working daily at the building – which has around 380 “office rooms”.
“I think the Civic Centre is not fit for purpose anymore,” said Cllr Fouweather. “The running costs are horrendous. But what do you do with the building? That is a major problem. A lot of it is listed.”
On the condition and current use of the building, he added: “If you go down where the staff canteen used to be, it’s totally abandoned. There’s nothing there. It fell into a state of disrepair. Staff have to rely on vending machines.”
Moving to a new, more appropriately-sized building would streamline the council’s running costs – and should also spell the end of current remote working policies, according to Cllr Fouweather.
“There’s absolutely no need now for working from home”, he said, claiming that if more people worked in the office, “you get a better service, deal with people directly, the public are able to come in rather than [deal with] remote staff where you’ve got to wait and wait for a response”.
But a council spokesperson defended current working arrangements.
“The majority of Newport City Council staff have fixed places of work and do not work remotely,” they said. “The council, as a modern and mature employer, has enabled those staff who can work from multiple locations to do so.
“While we keep all operational decisions under review, there are no plans to revert to a pre-pandemic position. There is no evidence that remote working from multiple locations has had a negative impact on productivity, while there are clear benefits to it around recruitment and retention, congestion and climate change.”
The spokesperson said the previous consideration of relocating from the Civic Centre was part of its “routine management of our estate… to ensure all of the office space we maintain is fit for purpose for what we need as an organisation”.
“We can confirm that at this moment, the council has no plans to relocate from the civic centre to another location,” they added.
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