No major maintenance to take place at Civic Centre until Mansfield Council knows if it will leave building

The authority has submitted a £20 million business case to Government to transform the former Beales site, on Stockwell Gate and Queen Street, into a public sector ‘hub’.

If successful, the Levelling Up Fund bid could see the council leave its current Chesterfield Road South site and move into the town centre.

However, early council budget papers reveal the council has pencilled in planned works at its current Civic Centre base for the 2025/26 financial year, including £200,000 for lift replacements and £30,000 to replace an automatic door.

However, the authority’s latest corporate resources scrutiny committee meeting was told these works will not happen until the council knows whether it will remain at the Civic Centre.

Dawn Edwards, council head of finance, said: “Some of the works have been in the capital programme in previous years, but we are deferring that.

“We’re asking to roll the budget forward into the next financial year and then deferring it again until the decision has been made on the future of this building, where we will operate from and whether we will move to the old Beales building or not.

“We don’t want to be spending huge amounts of money on this building unless absolutely necessary and until the decision has been made.”

However, Coun Terry Clay, member for Brick Kiln, said: “The problem I’ve got is the building is still stood here at the moment and we’ve got to do maintenance.

“If we don’t keep on top of it, the bill’s going to get higher and higher each year.”

Ms Edwards said the council does not plan to do any “excessive works”, adding: “Anything from a health and safety point of view, we would have to do.”

Councils waiting to find out if their Levelling Up Fund bids have been successful will find out “by the end of this year”, a Government spokesman has confirmed.

If Mansfield Council’s bid is successful, it would require major works to take place inside the former Beales department store.

Assessments of the building have already begun and identified vertical and horizontal cracks, corroding steel and out-of-line concrete panels in part of the building.