Chelmsford: Vacant Shire Hall costs taxpayers £900K

The future of Chelmsford's Shire Hall building remains uncertain

A Grade II listed building that has stood vacant for 10 years has cost taxpayers almost £1m, the BBC found.

Shire Hall in Chelmsford closed as a magistrates court in 2012, but the BBC has found bills totalling £900,000 - including heating and maintenance.

In the past 11 years, various plans to bring the building back into use have failed and its future is unknown.

Essex County Council defended the costs and insisted it is working "to secure the building's future".

Figures obtained by the BBC through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request found that the bulk of the costs related to £782,501 worth of maintenance work, carried out in 2014 on the building's exterior.

The work included re-pointing and cleaning external structural stonework, as well as repairs to the roof, guttering and external features like railings.

But since its closure, £66,875 has been spent on heating - £10,198 in the last year alone.

The council, which owns the building, said the heating was on "at a very low level" to ensure it "remains protected from damage caused by the cold and damp."

The county council called the building "an important historical and community asset"

Unsuccessful proposals have included turning Shire Hall into a cinema, an art gallery or bars and restaurants.

Essex County Council previously entered into a £1m deal with the retail developer Aquila Holdings, the firm behind the development of New Bond Street in Chelmsford city centre.

It said it would have given the business a 250-year lease of the property.

But a planning application submitted in July 2021 that would have seen the property turned into shops and offices was refused by Chelmsford City Council in July 2022.

As a result, the lease agreement was terminated.

The grounds for rejection included advice from Historic England that alterations to the interior would be "intrusive", "contextually inappropriate" and that the application "lacked detail".

The building has been inaccessible for the past year due to major construction work taking place to pedestrianise Tindal Square, linking Shire Hall to the rest of the city centre, at a cost of £4.3m.

Most of the funding has come from developer contributions from other projects in the city.

Chelmsford City Council said the project would improve access routes to the city centre for walking and cycling, help strengthen the local economy and enhance the historic environment in an important conservation area.

The county council said it was "working with all partners to secure a productive future for Shire Hall", calling the building "an important historical and community asset".