TURNING a key town centre building into shops or homes has moved a step nearer.
Threadneedle House on Alcester Street, the former home of Barclays Bank and the Job Centre, has had restrictions lifted that were set down in the early 1980s and saw its use limited to only office space.
The sale of the building, part of which is still used by the Post Office, is currently progressing but as the Standard previously reported, current owners Redditch Borough Council applied to their own planning committee for a change in the rules this week.
Coun Roger Bennett told a planning committee meeting on Wednesday (February 11) while he supported the decision he could not understand why it was only coming before them more than a year after the decision was taken to market it.
“Surely when the agents looked at this originally they would have come out and said with those restrictions we would have difficulty in filling it?”
Coun David Thain added he shared reservations about the lack of urgency in marketing the building.
“If it had first came on the market with these removed, we might have been able to move a bit quicker than we are doing.”
But Coun Joe Baker said it was important to focus on the ‘here and now’, adding it was ‘deadly’ for a town to have empty office buildings within it.
