North Ayrshire Council approves Irvine relocation plans

Staff based at the Quarry Road office block, Trinity Church, Galt House, Greenwood Conference Centre and Bridgegate House will all relocate to Cunninghame House HQ.

The first phase will see staff leave Quarry Road and Trinity Church and relocate to Cunninghame House and Irvine Townhouse.

The Circuit facility, based at Quarry Road, would still be used as a sporting base by KA Leisure, and the council will look to market the remaining office space.

Councillors were told this week that the move will deliver £350,000 in savings through reduced property costs and provide capital receipts of £1.7m, as well as avoiding capital expenditure of a further £1.96m - set against capital investment costs of an estimated £2.65m.

The council will then explore future uses for the buildings through a marketing exercise and, in the case of Bridgegate House and Trinity Church, consider options for those buildings through the emerging plans to re-imagine Irvine’s town centre as part of the recent £20m Long Term Plan for Towns Levelling Up Funding allocation. 

The former Trinity Church will be put on the market. (Image: Google Street View)

Trinity Church will also be marketed and other options for the building explored if demand for a building of this type is, as expected, limited.

The next stage would see a phased closure of Bridgegate House, starting with relocation of most staff on the upper floors to Cunninghame House

The full vacation of Bridgegate House would be the final phase by January 2027. 

In the meantime, the council’s customer service centre and retail units on the ground floor of Bridgegate House would continue running as normal, providing an active frontage within that part of the town centre. Most council staff would move from the upper floors of the building and relocate to Cunninghame House later this year. 

Housing staff who work in Galt House will also move to Cunninghame House during this final phase.

The process will start later this year.

Staff at the Galt House office building in Irvine will move to Cunninghame House. (Image: Google Street View)

The move will deliver £350,000 of savings through reduced property costs and provide £1.7 million in capital receipts, as well as avoiding capital expenditure of £1.959m.

This is set against capital investment costs estimated at £2.652m to deliver the proposals.

A report put before councillors in December revealed that Bridgegate House and Cunninghame House were both filled to less than a third of their capacity thanks to staff spending more time working from home since the pandemic.

Average use of Cunninghame House was 32 per cent - 336 staff from a capacity of 1,000 - while the occupancy level at Bridgegate House was just 24 per cent (109 staff from a capacity of 450).

Councillor Tony Gurney, cabinet member for green environment and economy, said: “We are taking a proactive approach and are already considering next year’s budget and how we best utilise our resources and still provide value for money for our communities.

“It’s clear that working patterns have changed since the pandemic and this is an opportune time to consider the properties we have, our staff, our services and how we can get the best out of what we have.”

Greenwood Conference Centre in Irvine has been earmarked for closure. (Image: Google Street View)

Council leader Marie Burns added: “There will probably be a lot of questions about this outside this chamber but we must be upfront with people about the drivers behind this, one of which is financial.

“We have made it clear for a number of years the increasing pressure the council’s budgets are under. 

"We learned lessons during Covid about  the benefits of flexible working and have tried to maintain that for staff in the best way we can we can. And there is a climate change emergency.”