Planning Meetings To Move During Council Offices Refurb

Published on: 21 Jul, 2015
Updated on: 25 Jul, 2015

Borough council planning meetings are to move to close by Guildford Baptist Church until November while a £3.5million refurbishment project at the Millmead council offices is completed.

A Guildford Borough Council (GBC) spokesperson said: “We are improving and updating our Millmead offices’ 30-year-old facilities to make them a better and more accessible place for the public, councillors, staff and visitors.

“Some meetings will need to take place elsewhere whilst specific work is carried out in the council chamber and committee rooms.

“These will now take place in the auditorium of the Guildford Baptist Church Millmead Centre, which is just a two minute walk from our Millmead offices.”

Although live webcasting will not be available for these meetings, they will be recorded and loaded onto the GBC website at http://www.guildford.public-i.tv/core/portal/home for viewing after the meeting in the usual way. The council intend to do this within 24 hours of each meeting.

The planning committee meetings affected are:
• Wednesday 12 August
• Wednesday 2 September
• Wednesday 23 September
• Wednesday 14 October

In addition, the council meeting previously scheduled on Tuesday, October 6 will now be held on Wednesday October 7, also at Guildford Baptist Church’s auditorium.

Cllr Murray Grubb, (Con, Ash Wharf) and lead councillor for transformation and customer focus, said: “At Guildford Borough Council we feel that it’s of paramount importance that we make the delivery of high quality and efficient services at the heart of what we do and all of our council accommodation needs to enable this.

“Although many people are now regularly using our suite of online services, many still need to visit us in person at Millmead House for help and advice. It is both a centre for customer service and local democracy. It is also home to many staff and colleagues from within Surrey County Council and Surrey Police.

“We would like to thank the public for their cooperation throughout this process and we will be giving constant updates regarding any further temporary changes during these major improvements.”

The address of temporary venue is: Guildford Baptist Church, Millmead Centre, GU2 4BE.

Responses to Planning Meetings To Move During Council Offices Refurb

Bernard Parke Reply

July 21, 2015 at 5:01 pm

I remember when the present council offices were built in the 1980s. There was a considerable outcry from the public at the cost, which was then in the region of £4million.

This was then quite a frugal sum, considering that the Waverley new build in Godalming at the same time was around £7million.

Will, I wonder, this new project be better received?