£41m Cambridge Guildhall revamp ‘will be obsolete soon’ warn Green councillors

A £41million revamp of the Guildhall should be ditched by Cambridge City Council because it could be empty in three years, Green councillors have warned.

The council plans to spend up to £87m on its civic quarter project for the centre of Cambridge, which would pay for a major renovation of its Guildhall headquarters, updates to the Corn Exchange, including a new roof, and the removal of two-thirds of the permanent stalls on the market square to create entertainment space.

But as the Labour-run council discussed its budget on Monday (24 February), the Greens claimed millions of pounds could be wasted on consultants before the work even starts.

They warned the whole project could be quashed by the government’s devolution plans, which are expected to create new unitary authorities covering the whole of Cambridgeshire from 2028.

Meanwhile, in a bid to cut costs elsewhere, the council has decided to close three public toilets and increase the price of swimming at public pools.

Cllr Naomi Bennett (Green, Abbey), the leader of the Greens on the council, said: “If the decision is to press ahead with plans for the Guildhall, it is likely that those plans will become obsolete almost as soon as they are completed and the millions of pounds spent on consultants will be wasted.

“Blindly pushing on with this passion project will not only alienate future working partners by showing a less than open attitude to future co-operative working, it also reduces the confidence of the public that their funds will be spent wisely.”

The anticipated local government reorganisation means that Cambridge City Council as it stands will cease to exist from 2028.

Under it, the two-tier council structure in Cambridgeshire – with a county council plus a series of district councils, including the city council – will be replaced by one or more large unitary authorities. No decision has been made about where they could be based.

The Greens proposed a budget amendment to pause plans for the civic quarter, which they said would immediately save £1m in consultants’ fees, although £3m has already been committed to the project. The amendment was voted down and the council has decided to push ahead with the project.

Cllr Bennett added: “The decision as to where the headquarters of the new local authority will be based will be taken by the new principal authority council, not the old city council. Whether the new council is at the smaller or larger end of the scale, it is unlikely to continue to be under Labour control.

“There will be new political leadership and those leaders will need to forge connections across a much wider area. The shadow cabinet for the new council is not expected to be in place until after the May 2027 elections and accordingly this decision needs to be paused for at least two years until they are in place. We cannot make that decision for them.

“We cannot say whether the new principal authority will choose to be based in the historic centre of Cambridge, or even in Cambridge at all.”

She pointed out that there are other meeting and office spaces in Cambridge, including the now-empty Shire Hall, and so keeping the Guildhall for the city was not vital, in her opinion.

Cllr Bennett, who works as an accountant, said: “At this stage of any reorganisation, a cooperative and open stance is needed if the new council is to have any chance of achieving an appropriate environment for success.”

She added that when speaking to people in Abbey ward, no one there understood why millions of pounds were being spent on the civic quarter.

“To many residents, the historic centre and the Guildhall is somewhere they do not visit,” she said.

Cllr Mike Davey, the Labour leader of the council, did not agree and said they should not back out of a decision to “revive and refurbish” the Guildhall “when it gets tricky”.

Deputy leader Cllr Alice Gilderdale (Lab, East Chesterton) added that the civic quarter project was not just about the Guildhall, but was also about improving the market and the Corn Exchange.

She added that the work on the Guildhall itself would include decarbonisation, which she said any future authority would need to do.

Labour councillors defended the need for the Guildhall revamp, including Cllr Katie Thornburrow (Lab, Petersfield), who explained that commercial buildings must have an energy performance certificate rating of at least C from 2027 in order to be rented out.

She said: “By suggesting that the work on the Guildhall stops, it would mean that we would have to abandon parts of our net zero target and decarbonisation of buildings. What would happen if we didn’t upgrade this building? It would become a stranded asset. It has to be upgraded. Otherwise we might as well be saying, well, do we really want to keep it? And this is a very important symbol in Cambridge. It's the centre of Cambridge, a centre of civic life, and I hope that we can upgrade it in a way that is exemplary.

Cllr Rosy Moore (Lab, Coleridge) argued that when the council became absorbed into a larger authority “it’s even more important that the infrastructure of the council is in good repair, and that we have made some of those difficult decisions, and that our finances are in a good state”.

She added: “I obviously need to learn to not be surprised by the Greens that in a in a ward run by the Greens, nobody understands why we’re investing in the civic quarter, even though a big driver for that is the fact that we’ve declared a climate emergency, and we’ve got a target of being a net zero carbon council by 2030. Whoever runs Cambridge on whatever geography, we still need those targets, and we still need to decarbonise our buildings.”

The £41m upgrade would update the council offices and civic spaces in the Guildhall, create a rooftop pavilion space and make room for an interior cultural attraction. The Museum of Cambridge is in talks about relocating to the Guildhall, it has emerged.

The Corn Exchange would get a much-needed new roof as it is suffering from leaks that have forced events to be cancelled. It would also have an increased capacity from around 1,400 seats to 2,000 seats, solar panels and a new mezzanine bar area.

Under plans contested by traders, the market square would see two-thirds of the permanent stalls removed to create a flexible entertainment area. There would be 27 permanent stalls erected beneath a canopy and up to 61 temporary gazebos available to other traders. Meanwhile, the cobbles would be reset to make them level and more accessible for people with disabilities.