Senior councillors in Stafford are to discuss buying their own civic offices to save taxpayers money.

A confidential report to the borough council’s cabinet will ask for permission to purchase the town’s Civic Centre to save the local authority money in the future.

The building is currently subject to a lease which has more than 50 years to run and is subject to reviews over this period which could increase the rent.

Members of the cabinet will be told that buying the building will also enable the council to bid for grants to make the property more environmentally friendly and reduce running costs - funding which is easier to access if they own the Civic Centre.

As well as borough council functions, the four-storey building houses other agencies including NHS services.    

Leader of the council, Aidan Godfrey, said they did not want council taxpayers to be footing the bill of unnecessary costs which the authority would have no control over in the future.

He said: “We will be looking very closely at the figures to see if purchasing this building is the right thing to do. Any decision we make will be based on investing in the future.  

“We want to protect taxpayers’ money and if we were to own the building we would be able to bid for investment that will improve the carbon footprint of the Civic Centre which would mean better energy efficiency and therefore see a reduction in long-term running costs.”      

Because of commercial sensitivities the report is confidential and goes before the cabinet on Thursday (7 November).

Press Release No 6162