New council offices on track for completion

Nottinghamshire County Council’s new low carbon, all-electric office is on course to be completed on time – with all three floors and a roof now in place.

The new office, which is along the A611 Annesley Road near Hucknall, is to be known as Oak House and will have at least a dozen oak trees planted as part of the site’s green space.

Council leader, councillor Ben Bradley, welcomed the building’s progress. He said: “Not only will it be the home of some of our front-line services and the place where all council decisions are made, it is an investment which will help bring jobs, skills and more investment into the Hucknall area.

“It’s all part of our wider plan to prioritise delivering services rather than just running expensive buildings, which is why we are reducing the number of council offices from 17 to nine.”

The new office is being designed, project and cost-managed by Arc Partnership and built by Morgan Sindall Construction.

Councillor Keith Girling, Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Asset Management, said: “Oak House is a fitting name for this new office. An oak tree is the main image on our council’s logo, which is of course a nod to the county’s world-famous Major Oak.”

As well as the council’s civic, democratic and leadership functions, it will be the new home to two key frontline services, the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) for vulnerable children and adults, and its customer service centre, which handles all public enquiries.

Construction work is still on track to be completed in early 2025.

Meanwhile, construction of a new section of road and roundabout within the site, which began in September 2023, is now complete.

The wider site is planned to be regenerated into a new community which will include 805 new homes, led by Vistry Partnerships. The site is on council-owned land, which is mixed-use land that has been earmarked for development for more than a decade.