Anger over potential sale of civic centre

People in a Shropshire town are being invited to give their opinion on a proposal to sell a community building which closed three years ago.

Whitchurch Civic Centre was closed in September 2023 because reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or Raac, was found in the roof.

Shropshire Council says it cannot afford the £4 million it would cost to repair it, so now the authority is looking to sell it to developers.

The authority's cabinet member for finance, Roger Evans, said it had been left with little option because of the "financial emergency" and a "lack of external funding" to replace the concrete.

The centre opened in 1970 and was home to many clubs and organisations, such as the town council, library and driving test centre.

The closure led to some protests as locals were told it would be closed "for the foreseeable future."

Local resident Jac Briscoe said the building had turned into "a white elephant" on the high street.

"We have had an increase of 9% on the council tax this year and we are not getting anything for it," she added

"It was the hub of the community. There was coffee mornings, a market hall. They had weddings.

"People used it as venues for different things like music events, so there is not a lot in the town now."

Liz Hoskin has memories of events she went to at the centre, including a cinema group she attended as a child.

She said losing the building all together could massively affect businesses in the town.

"It has lost its centre of gravity. Lots of new people [are] moving in because they've been building lots of houses," Hoskin said.

"Without somewhere to come and be, [new people] are not going to visit the town centre. They will just get in their cars and go elsewhere."

Mike Wildi moved to the town five years ago and thinks that instead of selling it, more money should be invested into the centre.

"We haven't got the theatre anymore, the library is tiny by comparison to the one we had," Wildi said.

"Just look at the number of empty shops we've got now and some very spacious ones too.

"The Saturday market always used to be very active [but] now because the market used to be in various rooms, that is gone and that creates footfall for the rest of the town."

Proposing to dispose of the civic centre is a difficult political decision for the ruling Liberal Democrat administration.

The building is in the middle of a town that elected three councillors from the party in the local elections last year.

One of them, Gregory Ebbs, organised a rally before the election to put pressure on the then Conservative-run Shropshire Council to save the building.

He described it as “the central hub of the town”.

But the desperate need to spend less and trim assets may leave the authority with little option but to sell it, regardless of the pressure from residents and councillors to secure its future.

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