The leader of Nottinghamshire County Council says he saw smoke "pouring out" of the Conservative administration's headquarters as workers were evacuated during a major incident on Thursday, July 28. A firefighter at the scene says flames ripped through the first floor corridor before spreading throughout the building and onto the fourth floor.
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service says 12 fire engines and two aerial ladder platforms attended the blaze in County Hall, off Loughborough Road. Derbyshire and Leicestershire's fire crews also assisted in the major incident and East Midlands Ambulance Service attended as a "precaution".
Smoke could be seen billowing out of County Hall, an ageing building completed in the 1950s after delays due to the Second World War. While the extent of the damage is not yet known the fire is understood to have spanned multiple floors.
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Ben Bradley, the leader of the Conservative administration and MP for Mansfield, told Nottinghamshire Live the incident happened on his corridor and they will now have to seek alternative accommodation. He said: "We were sat in meetings today, about half past 11, twenty five to 12, when the fire alarm went off.
"We managed to evacuate everybody safely which is great and gathered outside next to the river just to see smoke pouring out of the administration's corridor, actually, of one of the political offices of the building. We are just waiting now for the fire service's assessment of what happens next.
"It doesn't look good at all for that portion of the building, I'm not an expert so I'll wait for the fire service to give us their proper assessment but certainly it looks like our corridor, where we work as the political administration, we are not going to get back in to that for some time and we will have to look for some alternative accommodation.
"It is difficult to know, it is our offices effectively as councillors that have seemingly been at the brunt of it. We are waiting to find out what has happened and why and what extent that damage is. It is very unlikely we are going to be allowed back in that part of the building any time soon."
The fire comes just a day after a controversial plan to build a new £15.7 million Nottinghamshire County Council office at Top Wighay Farm, which opposition councillors have objected to on 30 different occasions, was given the go-ahead. Asked about the plans at Top Wighay councillor Bradley added: "I'm not going to talk about that."
Matt Reavill, group manager at the fire service, spoke at the scene to say: "We believe the fire started on the first floor and then fire spread along the first floor and up onto the second, third and fourth floors. I am pleased to report we believe we have got on top of the fire and we believe we have actually stopped the fire itself, but there is a significant amount of smoke in the building.
"Due to it being an old building there is a likelihood it could travel between floors. At the moment we are going through a systematic search to make sure we have got any pockets of fire and stop the smoke spread. We don't believe anyone is in the building but we are treating that with caution.
"At this time we don't know how the fire started but in about two and a half hours we are going to be joined by police and our specialist fire investigators."
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