North Ayrshire Council plan to move out of Irvine buildings

The major cost-cutting exercise would see most of the staff and work carried out in the properties transferred to the council's Cunninghame House HQ.

In a report, council officials recommend that Trinity Church, Galt House, the Greenwood Conference Centre and the Quarry Road office block should all be vacated and considered for sale.

However, in the case of Bridgegate House and Trinity Church, options for alternative use will also be considered.

A council spokesperson said the sell-off plans had been sparked by changes in working patterns since the Covid pandemic.

The authority has vowed to carry out major consultations with local residents before the plans are finalised.

The move was confirmed just weeks after the council's ruling SNP group got their latest budget approved - with help from Conservative members.

Councillors will be asked to consider the new proposals for the Irvine properties at a meeting of the authority's cabinet on Tuesday, March 19.

The proposal would then be to explore future uses through a "marketing exercise".

In the case of Bridgegate House and possibly Trinity Church, they would consider options for those buildings through the emerging plans to re-imagine Irvine’s town centre as part of the recent £20m Levelling Up Funding allocation under the UK Government's Long Term Plan for Towns.

The plans would be delivered over several phases, with the full vacation of Bridgegate House as the final phase by January 2027.

In the meantime, the council’s customer service centre and the retail units on the ground floor of Bridgegate House would continue to operate as normal.

Most staff would move from the upper floors of the building and relocate to Cunninghame House later this year.

In December, it was revealed that the average occupancy level of Bridgegate House was 109 staff - less than 25 per cent of its capacity of 450.

Galt House (Image: NAC)

Cunninghame House, meanwhile, had an average occupancy level of 336 staff per day, from a total capacity of 1,000.

Bridgegate had a maximum occupancy level of 137 on any single day, with the maximum figure for Cunninghame House being 359.

An NAC spokesperson said: "The drivers behind the property plans are to better align the council’s office accommodation to new working patterns since the pandemic, and also help address the financial challenges facing the public sector by reducing property running costs while at the same time reducing carbon emissions across the council’s estate."

Councillor Tony Gurney, NAC's cabinet member for green environment and economy, said: “We are taking a proactive approach and 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.

 “Making these changes not only makes sense for staff, but also for financial and environmental reasons, and it gives us wider scope to pursue plans to reshape and transform the town centre.

"We look forward to speaking with community groups on the re-imagining of the town centre and engaging with them in the coming months.

 “A lot of work has been carried out by officers to assess the various options. We propose to continue engaging with staff, and other stakeholders, over the coming months to make detailed preparations for the moves.”