Sandwell Council staff could move into The Public arts centre
Tuesday 28th December 2010, 10:52AM GMT.
Up to 70 council staff could move into empty office space inside £72 million Black Country arts centre The Public, the Express & Star can reveal today.
The area on level four of the West Bromwich complex has failed to attract any tenants, more than two years after it opened.
Now, Sandwell’s finance chief Councillor Steve Eling has said he is looking at plans to relocate staff from rented buildings into the space to save money.
But leader of the Tory opposition group Councillor Ray Nock said the move “smacked of desperation”.
The council must make savings of around £75 million over the next four years following Government budget cuts.
Councillor Eling said: “If the top floor of The Public, which has been marketed for some time and is fully fitted out, is not let out within a few months I am going to move council staff in.”
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Just a note to whoevere it concerns on the council. I live at Alder Crescent on the Yew Tree estate, rubbish has been sitting outside our houses all over Christmas,not very nice to see on Christmas morning. I know what the reply will be.”The snow was too bad” If they could get up and down to the steep hills to Charlement they could round our crescent. I know what i am talking about , i drive an 18 tonner and got round so why not a dustcart.
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Mr Wright,
This is the Express & Star website.
It may have failed your obvious intelligence, but the Express & Star don’t collect rubbish.
Sandwell Council is a local authority.
If you want your rubbish collected, contact Sandwell Council.
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This building has been a disaster. Cut the losses now. We all make bad decisions but the mature thing is to face up to the results of such decisions and correct the situation. It will bleed money forever, pull it down.
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Is this just a practical use of something being under utilised or the most long-winded, anoying,expensive way of getting new council office space that if built as such tax payers would have complained about?
Now dig a big hole in the ground floor and fill it with water and give the people of West Bromwich what they wanted all along.
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at least they can catch the bus to work
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Whatever next?
Just to justify one of the biggest mistakes this council as made over the last fifty years.
Councillor Eling just be honest and say what the entire population of Sandwell have been telling you from day one. “It’s no going to work”
Moving staff into the Public to save money, don’t you really mean reduce the amount of money being wasted?
West Bromwich skyline is quite depressing so why not eventually change it by demolishing the pink elephant that the experts have told you, “It’s no going to work”
On some schemes this council have planed makes your mind boggle at the basic facts that have been ignored.
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John,
Why do Sandwell voters keep voting Labour then?
There was a by-election in Wednesbury last month.
It used to be held by the Conservatives.
Labour won it.
If Sandwell people really gave a brass razoo about The Public, like you say they do, why do they vote Labour still?
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They vote Labour because they don’t want The Tory’s in power..Who Does really??
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Whoever designed that building needs to go to specsavers. What a vulgar abomination.
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A woman, who lives nowhere near here . Exactly the same as the awful road system that was given the go ahead. Now things are on the change again with Victorian buildings(Cronehills) being demolished for the sake of a supermarket. The heart and soul has been ripped out of mine and your town. The local government,councilors and authorities should be made to pay with their jobs, fines and even a public hanging . And i would be first in the que to release the brake . STRING THEM UP ! .
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Just let the locals have it for a Temple or a Mosque, because that is what it will end up as.
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In your opinion.
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Very much so,
as a church boy you can now play the ”Minority” status card in your quest to make it a Cathedral.
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Can’t see the council bending over backwards for a Cathedral; just look at the state of one’s in Sandwell, for instance. No, we get silly schemes like this instead, or ‘mega mosque’ projects..
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Why is Mr Eling waiting for a few months? They’ve had two years to let the empty office space and can’t. The council should have moved the staff in ages ago or more preferably sell off this white elephant. Oh sorry, no sane person would want to buy a tin shed with pink windows.
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I suggest it should become the offices for ALL Sandwell Councillors.
Remove all the glass and allow local Rates Payers to throw wet sponges through the holes.
Each hole has a particular value in relation to its size.
Varying rates rebates and prizes should be then awarded for each sponge succesfully thrown through hole.
Extra points/rebates to be given if the sponge hits a Sandwell Councillor “hard at work” at their desk !
Everybody may not agree with my idea but it has as much chance of succeeding as The Public does at this moment in time.
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since when did sandwell councillors work hard
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Being a councillor is voluntary.
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Who is Councillor Eling trying to kid
Now, Sandwell’s finance chief Councillor Steve Eling has said he is looking at plans to relocate staff from rented buildings into the space to save money.
I bet the council will pay the rent on the floor they use and say the publics making money
I pay my rates to this lot
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“The council has already been warned that European Regional Development Fund, which gave £8 million to the development, could demand money back unless creative businesses move in.” E&S 2/12/2010
Surely if the council move in their own staff then this money will have to be repaid as the last time I looked the council weren’t a CREATIVE business.
Move in staff and cost another £8 million or shut it.Not much of a choice is it?
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What makes me angry is when certain people in this council lecture others on “abuse of the benefits system” (which is mostly down to administrative error) – juxtapose that with the absolutely absurd amounts wasted on projects like this and also overseas interests.
The council talks about saving money..by moving staff into an arts complex?! Yep, let’s pump even more public money into an ill-advised project, one that should have never seen the light of day. What next: Golden council cups lined with authentic pink Indian paint so that the executive clients can look down on the rest of us in comfort? Yet again money well spent, Sandwell..
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John,
What do you suggest then?
It would cost millions to demolish. It cannot be used for anything other than offices, exhibition space etc.
There is planning permission for a massive office complex just down the road that has just begun construction. Any demand for offices is likely to go there, not to The Public.
Yes, The Public was a massive mistake. But it was driven through by an organisation with too much money and an individual with too much ego, and a cabinet made up of grinning monkeys eager to see their names in lights and desperate for OBEs and other gongs. They have no resistance, because Sandwell voters would vote for a grinning monkey if it had a Labour rosette on.
One solution I can see to stopping future mistakes is to have an elected mayor in Sandwell.
Voters will never elect anyone other than Labour in Sandwell, so relying on politicians to properly analyse decisions is never going to happen when Labour councillors are so eager to rise to the top and never challenge anyone else. If there was a seperate Mayor to the cabinet – even a Labour one (as it would inevitably be) then there would at least be some form of separate and powerful voice that would challenge and critique the Leader and his cabinet of sycophants.
However, Sandwell people are so ignorant, they will simply see an elected mayor as more waste.
Therefore, you are all constantly and perpetually doomed to ridiculous decisions such as this, so long as you all vote Labour.
The only hope is to move away, and far away.
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Have you actually been around West Bromwich lately? I have, and it’s a dump. A filthy, tacky, yob-infested DUMP any day of the week.
In the center of this garbage pile you have an expensive (and largely vacant) arts complex.
So this latest This declaration of intent is so arrogant to me, I can barely put it into words. Putting Sandwell Council in those offices really is the icing on the cake for all the wrong reasons. Don’t tell us about waste..our schools, our hospitals and our roads are a disgrace and in the middle of it is the reason why.
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Here is my experience of trying to view the vacant office space at The Public:
1. Countless phone calls attempting to arrange a viewing were met with resistance, apathy and downright hostility. Why ?
2. Promised calls back from the person in charge of arranging viewing failed to transpire.
3. In the end I went to the Public in person, only to be told the person with the keys was not in the building today – on several occasions
4. I left my number and name – no response.
5. More abortive phone calls followed without any response
6.About a year ago, I popped in again and whilst there asked a security guard, who has the keys to the vacant offices- at which he fell about laughing !
7. Turned out there are no keys since the offices are open plan and open access when one steps out of the lift on the relevant floor.
8. He kindly took me for a tour. Instead of tenants I was greeted by a bucket and mop, and a sweeping brush and various pieces of clutter. The offices that cannot ( JOKE ) be filled have been used as a dumping ground, and there has never been any attempt to market or facilitate entry to these premises.
9. He told me that they positively do not want tenants in these offices.
10. Also, half the floor space has been altered at great cost on the same floor – we will be getting a new tenant up here in the future he said – an organisation.So further expenditure on the Pink Elephant
11. Something is rotten in the state of Hamlet – I mean West Bromwich aka Sandwell.
12. Now if Councillor Eling could reply and arrange a viewing I would love to hear from him.
13 After two years of trying I would welcome his intervention.
14. The people of West Bromwich should revolt and demand community ownership of this building.
15. Let the children young people and adults who live in this borough, enjoy access to facilities.
16. Hand it over to a dynamic organisation with vision and drive to make this work.
17. Open up the cinema every Saturday for the children.
18. Music theatre art – the list is endless.
The Public should not be allowed to wither.
Creative responses in a time of recession please. Not appropriation by Councillors. Outrageous.
Pauline Geoghegan
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