Further £1m to be spent on City Hall revamp

Work started on Norwich City Hall in 1936 and was completed two years later

A council is set to spend another £1m on drawing up plans to redevelop its headquarters.

Norwich City Council has already spent nearly £1m on proposals which could see its Grade II* listed building expanded to include a hotel or offices.

The Labour-run authority has said it needs to modernise City Hall - which opened in 1938 – to mitigate running costs of £2m a year and improve energy efficiency.

"Doing nothing isn't an option, and it's right that we do this properly," said Carli Harper, the cabinet member for finance and major projects.

The plans include new public areas and a so-called Civic Living Room to provide space for meetings, events and exhibitions – while improving accessibility.

The council hopes the reimagining of City Hall - which it says is a symbol of Norwich's "heritage, culture and identity" - will generate between £53m and £104m in economic benefits.

Councillor Carli Harper said the building was "incredibly expensive to run"

At the council's cabinet meeting on Wednesday, they agreed to invest the extra £1m on further designs, surveys and on gaining the necessary consent for working on a listed building.

However, they were told that developing a hotel or offices at the rear of the site should be set aside for now.

Those options were not "currently viable without significant public sector support" the report warned.

Instead, it advised the focus should be on improving the current building and Harper said she hoped that would increase its public use: "Lots of people don't ever visit City Hall and we're very keen to change that."

Harper said the aim was still to "save the public purse money in the long term".

'Commercially sensitive'

But the opposition Greens questioned why designs already drawn up have not been made publicly available.

"City Hall is one of Norwich's most important heritage assets," said their leader Lucy Galvin.

"City Hall belongs to us all. But the detailed plans for its future are being kept from public view."

Harper said the council "wouldn't publish this sort of detailed, commercially sensitive financial information at this stage".

"We are going to be doing a full, proper public consultation in the new year," she added.