Council bosses celebrate start of new shared officer project in Lowestoft

Official turf Cutting cermony for the new Council buildings in Lowestoft. Mark Bee, Colin Law and Dennis Cotton cut the soil.

Anthony Carroll Friday, February 21, 2014 6:30 AM

Construction work got under way this week on a 13.6m waterfront office block in south Lowestoft that will provide a new shared home for two councils.

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Once completed, the building by Lake Lothing in Riverside Road will house all staff employed by Waveney District Council and Suffolk County Council staff in Lowestoft, apart from their customer services employees.

The start of the work was marked by a ground-breaking ceremony on Wednesday, attended by Waveneys leader Colin Law and his county council counterpart Mark Bee.

As they celebrated the start of the 13-month construction project, they explained the rationale of investing millions of pounds in the new building and relocating hundreds of staff there from Lowestoft Town Hall and 10 local offices at a time when public finances were being squeezed.

The two councils say moving to the new building will help them save up to 3m of tax-payers money over 10 years by allowing them to dispose of the 11 buildings which are deemed unfit for purpose or inefficient.

Mr Law said: If we maintained our current buildings, it could have cost up to 16m over 10 years. At a time when funding for public organisations is under increasing pressure, we simply could not allow that to happen.

Instead we are creating a win-win scenario which will provide appropriate accommodation for our hard-working staff while better protecting the important services we provide to the local community.

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Council bosses celebrate start of new shared officer project in Lowestoft