Whitchurch Civic Centre: sell-off vote on 9 September

Shropshire Council’s Cabinet is being asked to declare Whitchurch Civic Centre and Library surplus to requirements and put it on the market. The decision is item 16 at Cabinet on Wednesday 9 September at 10.30am, in the Council Chamber at The Guildhall, Frankwell Quay, Shrewsbury SY3 8HQ. (Shropshire Council, Cabinet agenda, 9 September 2026)

Most of the complex has been shut since September 2023, when reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or RAAC, was found in its roof. The sports and market hall stayed open. It housed the town library, the indoor market, a performance and meeting hall, the visitor information centre and the offices of Whitchurch Town Council. Whitchurch sits in north Shropshire, about 17 miles north of Shrewsbury in a straight line.

The officer report is blunt about why the council is not repairing it. Under a financial emergency, Exceptional Financial Support and a Best Value notice, it says, a disposal-led strategy “is therefore the only currently affordable and deliverable option”. (Shropshire Council, Whitchurch Civic Centre asset decision report, 1 September 2026)

What the £4 million actually covers

The council’s press notice puts the repair bill at around £4 million. The report breaks that figure down, and the split matters:

• about £3 million for roof replacement, RAAC remediation and consequential works
• about £1 million for wider condition liabilities found in the 2026 surveys
• of that, £500,000 to £600,000 is urgent and essential work needed before anyone could go back in
• and roughly £50,000 is needed within three to six months, to investigate and deal with the High Street timber balcony façade and continuing RAAC deterioration

The report says the £50,000 of near-term work will be carried out if it is confirmed as needed. The estimates exclude any remodelling or wider refurbishment.

There is a second number the press notice leaves out. The council has spent £54,234 on maintaining and holding the building over the past six financial years. The annual figure ranged from £3,409 in 2021/22 to £19,761 in 2024/25, and was £10,154 last year.

The £4 million was never actually allocated

Cabinet put £4 million into the capital strategy in February 2025 for match funding or a roof replacement. The report is careful about what that was: “a planning assumption, not a funded allocation or authority to proceed”. No money was allocated before May 2025, and the scheme stayed subject to funding, affordability and further approvals.

The council also makes a national point. Dedicated government RAAC money exists for schools and NHS buildings, but there is no equivalent programme for council civic, cultural or library buildings, and the report says attempts to secure government funding for this site have been unsuccessful.

What the campaigners asked for, and what happened

The Save Our Civic group has been running since a public meeting in January 2024. Its April 2026 submission, published as Appendix C to the Cabinet report, sets out five next steps: find major capital funding, keep a library, a performance venue and the indoor market on the site, work up options for running it, build a shadow board for a community interest company, and produce a business case. (Shropshire Council, Appendix C: summary of community interest and Save Our Civic submission, April 2026)

The submission notes that the problem is the RAAC roof, not the steel frame. It quotes the council’s own 2023 structural inspection: the property is “a braced steel frame with precast concrete beam and block floors”, with RAAC to the roof areas, and the RAAC present in some areas is “classified as Red (Critical)”.

At the group’s request the council met its nominated RAAC specialist in July 2026. The report accepts that the specialist advised localised or staged remediation could be explored. It then explains why that did not change the recommendation: confirming an alternative would need intrusive testing, structural modelling, design and professional validation, “potentially costing more than £100,000 before evaluation”.

The council’s conclusion is that community submissions support keeping civic functions but that no fully costed, funded and deliverable alternative has been presented.

The lease, the library and the small print

Three things in the report have not been widely reported and will shape what happens next.

The town council holds a lease. Shropshire Council owns the building and leases it to Whitchurch Town Council on a 21-year lease running from 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2031. Either side can end it on at least 12 months’ notice. The report says the implications for disposal will be worked through with the town council.

The library duty does not go away. Whitchurch Library now operates from temporary premises at Unit C, St Mary’s Arcade. Under section 7 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 the council must provide a comprehensive and efficient library service, and the report commits to assessing what disposal means for future provision, including any separate consultation or decision.

A cheap sale is not straightforward. Any disposal has to secure the best consideration reasonably obtainable under section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972. Selling for less, which is what a community transfer would usually involve, needs a lawful exception such as the General Disposal Consent 2003 or the consent of the Secretary of State, and would require separate advice and possibly a further Cabinet decision.

The site is in the Whitchurch Conservation Area, so demolition or redevelopment would still need to clear planning and conservation processes. The report says disposal “would not predetermine demolition or redevelopment”.

Four centuries of the same argument

The Save Our Civic submission sets the closure in a long line of public halls on or near the site. The first market hall was built in 1636. It was replaced in 1718 by a covered market hall and corn exchange with a town hall above, built by the Earl of Bridgewater. A Victorian Gothic town hall followed in 1874 at a cost of £6,100, was fire damaged on 20 December 1941 and demolished in 1969. The present Civic Centre opened on 20 November 1970, and had a £1.68 million refurbishment in 2012.

What it means for you

If Cabinet agrees the recommendation, the council will run a managed disposal with valuation, legal, planning and technical due diligence behind it. The route could be a freehold sale, a long lease, a conditional sale or a development agreement. Officers would keep assessing community-led proposals, including a community asset transfer, but the report is explicit that any proposal must be “fully costed, funded, deliverable and legally compliant”.

If you want to follow it:

• Watch or attend on 9 September. The meeting is public. Anyone wanting a seat in the Guildhall is asked to email democracy@shropshire.gov.uk in advance, because space is limited. The council live streams meetings.
• Read the papers first. The report, the red line plan showing exactly what is being sold, the 2026 condition survey and the Save Our Civic submission are all published on the agenda page.
• The library is a separate decision. Nothing on 9 September closes the library service, and the temporary St Mary’s Arcade site is not part of this report’s recommendation.
• Community proposals are not shut out, but the bar is money. The council has now twice concluded that no funded alternative exists. A community bid would need a capital package, not a plan for one.

Whitchurch’s own council tax bill funds a share of all this. Our guide to Shropshire council tax bands explains how the charge is built up, and Shropshire planning news tracks the applications that will follow any sale.