Northamptonshire County Council agrees plan to sell historic County Hall

County Hall in Northampton town centre is a listed building

A council can "ill afford" the running costs of its historic former home and will sell it, a meeting has heard.

County Hall in Northampton, home to many Northamptonshire County Council offices, costs £380,000-a-year to run.

At a cabinet meeting, the council resolved to sell the site - which is a listed building - and will move staff to its new headquarters.

It also sold its new One Angel Square HQ in April and chose to rent it back so it could balance the books.

The meeting heard Grade-II listed County Hall was deemed "surplus to requirements", but any sale would see the council debating chamber preserved for at least two years pending a reorganisation of local government in Northamptonshire.

The UK government has proposed dissolving the county council and merging all the county's other councils into two unitary authorities after it ran out of money.

'Disgrace to the council'

Conservative cabinet member for finance, Michael Clarke, said: "It costs £380k to keep that building open, and that's a cost that the council can ill afford."

However, the move was met with opposition by a number of members of the public and councillors at the meeting.

James Ashton, a former county councillor, told the meeting: "I've worked as a property consultant for 21 years before I joined the council. If you try to dispose of this you will get little or nothing in return."

Liberal Democrat councillor Dennis Meredith said: "If we sell this building off it will be a disgrace to this council."

Responding, Mr Clarke said the council would aim to still have access to the building - which acted as the democratic hub of the council - through the council chamber and a data centre.