£2m upgrade for Manchester town hall
MANCHESTER City Council is facing a £2.2m bill for “urgent” repairs at its grade I-listed town hall.
The town hall extension and the neighbouring Central Library have recently undergone a major renovation, but the original town hall in Albert Square was not included in these works.
According to a council document prepared ahead of an executive meeting this week, the town hall, and Albert Square, have never had a “comprehensive repairs, maintenance and upgrade programme”.
It added: “Earlier this year, investigative works were carried out on the Town Hall by city council officers, alongside a specialist heritage construction team. This work has identified the fact that the Town Hall is in urgent need of mechanical and electrical systems upgrades and essential works to parts of the fabric of the building. This is because there is a substantial risk that parts of the building may need to be vacated as they do not meet operational and safety requirements.
“In addition to the Town Hall building, the investigative works considered Albert Square, the findings of which, as with the Town Hall, are that there are a number of maintenance works to the hard landscaping and also the drainage that need to be completed so as to ensure continued usage.”
The council said improvements to Albert Square would link key spaces such as St Peter’s Square and Spinningfields, “creating a fluent and connected civic quarter”.
