Demolition of the first wing of Pathfinder House -Huntingdonshire District Council’s headquarters is underway. Construction of new offices and a purpose-built customer services centre will start early in the New Year.
To mark this important step the chairman of the district council, Councillor Phillip Swales and council leader Councillor Ian Bates, joined representatives from Alfred McAlpine, including Bob Tattrie, managing director of the company’s developments team in watching a huge hydraulic ‘gobbler’ arrive on site ready to munch through the walls of the wing floor by floor.
While on site the guests helped to take down the historic Huntingdonshire road sign from the canopy over the main entrance to Pathfinder House. It will be stored safely until the new offices are completed.
The process is expected to take six weeks and, for safety reasons, while this element of the work is underway, one lane of the ring road may have to be closed for a short period outside of the morning and evening rush hour alongside Pathfinder House.
Building the new offices is a three year project and will enable the council to greatly improve the delivery of and access to all its services through a custom-built customer services centre.
The decision to re-build was taken two years ago following a series of surveys by independent structural engineers who confirmed irreversible deterioration of Pathfinder House’s walls and a projection that this would reach crisis point by 2010. Loose masonry was considered to constitute a health and safety hazard and scaffolding was installed in 2004 to ensure the brickwork was secured to the concrete structure.
Improved facilities for the public will be at the heart of the new offices. A dedicated customer service centre will allow visitors to complete their business quickly and confidentially. This will build on the lessons learnt from the temporary centre in Centenary House which has been warmly received by the council’s customers. New meeting rooms will give the public greatly improved access to the council’s decision-making.
Councillor Ian Bates, leader of the council, said: “Today marks a significant milestone towards a redevelopment programme which will bring many benefits. There will be excellent access for customers who prefer or require face-to-face contact with our services and more appropriate and flexible public meeting rooms.
“The new buildings will meet the needs of the 21st century being modern and efficient to run, meeting high environmental standards and providing a more comfortable, appropriate and safe working environment for our staff.
“We are delighted to be continuing our working relationship with Alfred McAlpine who has already delivered our new operations centre, Eastfield House, Latham Road, a more appropriate and safer location from which to operate our large vehicle fleet. It has also provided better facilities for a number of other services including CCTV and vehicle maintenance.”
Bob Tattrie, managing director of the Developments team at Alfred McAlpine said: “We look forward to delivering this next phase of development which will provide a sustainable, accessible and flexible building to enable the Council to maintain its excellent customer service for many years to come. We will continue to work in close co-ordination with the Council to ensure that the development causes the minimum of disruption to visitors, staff and councillors.”