Nottingham City Council will spend £140,000 to remove asbestos from the historic Guildhall in an "essential" step towards its sale and transformation into a hotel. The authority decided on January 31 to approve the funding of the second phase of asbestos removal at the former district heating plant areas situated below the Guildhall and Trinity House, Burton Street, Nottingham.
Phase one of these works has been completed, with a report noting the removal was considered to be essential in enabling the sale of the Guildhall site. Plans for the site to become a hotel were given the go-ahead in August 2020, with a fine-dining rooftop restaurant and spa among the facilities that will be developed there.
Last September, the council said that although the hotel plans were agreed in principle, they are still subject to a Section 106 agreement which will not be agreed until the Guildhall sale is completed. The decision report warned that any problems with the sale would "materially affect the council’s capital programme/debt repayment". The money expected from the sale of the building is said to be significant.
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The work is being funded from capital reserves, which in turn will be replenished by the future sale of the Guildhall. The report further explains the former EnviroEnergy plant rooms, which served the Guildhall complex, have now been decommissioned and due to their location under Trinity House the remaining asbestos and redundant pipework need to be removed.
The council has also entered into a Deed of Surrender with the owners of Trinity House and EnviroEnergy - which is in voluntary liquidation - and a condition of the deed is to remove all remaining asbestos and redundant mechanical and electrical systems. The works will not impact any of the listed elements of the property.
Previously as much as £130,000 was signed off by Nottingham City Council to spend on structural surveys of the Grade-II listed building and clear pigeon droppings ahead of its transformation. Gaps in the building's exterior had allowed pigeons to infest the building, resulting in the bird mess, which a council report said was "causing significant damage to listed parts of the property".
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