Whitchurch Civic Centre: sale approved, in force 17 Sept

Update, 15 September 2026: Cabinet approved the recommendation on 9 September. Whitchurch Civic Centre and Library is now declared surplus and approved for disposal in principle. The decision can still be called in until Wednesday 16 September, and comes into force on Thursday 17 September if it is not. When we checked on 15 September, the council’s decision record showed no call-in requests. (Shropshire Council, decision record: Whitchurch Civic Centre and Library asset decision)

What Cabinet decided

The decision record lists four resolutions. Cabinet:

• declared the site, edged red on the plan at Appendix A, surplus to the council’s operational needs
• approved its disposal in principle, subject to due diligence and the financial, legal and statutory tests in the report
• handed the sale to the Service Director for Place Shaping, with the Section 151 Officer and the portfolio holders for finance and assets, who must secure “the best consideration reasonably obtainable”
• noted that officers will keep talking to the Whitchurch councillors, Whitchurch Town Council and other interested parties

That third point matters. From 17 September, the choice of buyer and route sits with officers, not with another Cabinet vote. The one exception set out in the report is a sale below market value, such as a community transfer, which could need separate advice and a further Cabinet decision.

Before the meeting, the council said disposal would not predetermine demolition, and that “viable community-led proposals would continue to be considered during due diligence and marketing”. (Shropshire Council Newsroom, 1 September 2026)

The rest of this article is our report from the Cabinet papers, published before the vote.

The report Cabinet approved

The decision was item 16 at Cabinet on Wednesday 9 September, at The Guildhall, Frankwell Quay, Shrewsbury. (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

The council will now run a managed disposal, with valuation, legal, planning and technical checks behind it. The route could be a freehold sale, a long lease, a conditional sale or a development agreement. Community-led proposals, including a community asset transfer, can still be put forward, but the report says any proposal must be “fully costed, funded, deliverable and legally compliant”.

If you want to follow it:

• Call-in closes on 16 September. Call-in is a request by councillors for scrutiny to review a decision before it takes effect. The decision record shows the running count.
• Read the papers. The report, the red line plan showing exactly what is being sold, the 2026 condition survey and the Save Our Civic submission are all attached to the decision record.
• The library is a separate decision. Nothing Cabinet agreed closes the library service, and the temporary St Mary’s Arcade site is not part of the sale.
• Community bids need money, not only a plan. The council has now twice concluded that no funded alternative exists. A community bid would need a capital package.
• Talk to your councillors. Cabinet has asked officers to keep engaging with the Whitchurch division members and the town council as the sale strategy is worked out.

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.