Council to rebuild HQ on old site by 2022

SOUTH Oxfordshire District Council is hoping to rebuild its headquarters by the spring of 2022.

It has been based in temporary offices at Milton Park, near Didcot, since 2015 following a fire which severely damaged its old buildings in Crowmarsh Gifford.

It shares the building with the Vale of White Horse District Council as a number of services are delivered jointly by the two councils.

Councillor Andrea Powell, cabinet member for the rebuilding project, said the cost of the new headquarters was confidential.

She said: “We still have to go through a design and planning process but we are hoping that we will be able to move back in the spring of 2022.

“That is quite ambitious but we would like to move in as soon as possible because we are currently paying quite a lot of rent.

“We don’t have the exact design specifications yet but we are confident it will save us money on running costs and I think everybody is excited about the prospect of a building that we can be very proud of.

“It is much more beneficial in the long run to own your own building.” The council, which is run by a Liberal Democrat-Green coalition, says the building will be designed to be “green”.

Councillor Powell said: “It is important to us as a council that central to this new building is sustainability and a green, clean way of working. This is about investing sensibly now to reduce our future impact on the environment.”

They assessed a number of options before concluding that returning to an energy efficient building at the Crowmarsh Gifford site, which it owns, was the most cost-effective.

Council leader Sue Cooper is exploring the potential benefits of a formal merger with the Vale of White Horse council to save money. The councils already have the same chief executive.

The fire at the council’s old officers was estimated to have caused £20 million damage. It was started deliberately by a man from Rokemarsh who carried out a series of arson attacks in January 2015 and was later detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act.