An update report on the Our Town Hall project which has been published outlines its progress, vision and the significant challenges which have impacted its budget and timetable.
The Our Town Hall project is the largest and most complex heritage project taking place anywhere in the UK.
Progress
The project team of skilled craftspeople are now 75% of the way through the ‘construction’ phase and the report notes that the quality of work completed on the Grade I-listed building and Albert Square is exceptional.
Safeguarding the town hall, a nationally-important Manchester icon, for generations to come through repair, restoration and refurbishment is at the heart of the project. So too is improving public access to this incredible building and its collection of civic artefacts which help tell the story of the city. When it reopens it will include a new free Visitor Experience attraction which will open up its history and add to the city’s cultural offer.
A further vital element of the project is bringing the building up to modern safety standards. Before work started some sections had already become unusable due to them no longer meeting safety guidance, with services having to be relocated. After almost 150 years, many of the town hall’s elements were reaching the end of their natural lifespans.
The project is also transforming Albert Square, enlarged by 25% by the pedestrian of the roads along three of its sides, into a world-class public space.
Manchester people are already benefitting from the project. It continues to perform strongly against its objective to deliver economic and social value for Manchester, with the maximum positive impact for residents and businesses and a genuine legacy in construction and heritage skills. More than 57% of its spending is with Manchester businesses (against a baseline target of 40%) and 46% of those working on the project live in the city (against a baseline target of 30%.) In total 300 jobs and 172 apprenticeships (111 of which went to Manchester residents) have been created.
Benefits are also being felt as parts of the project which are already completed are revealed. This includes sections of Albert Square and key heritage features returned to their former glory which are being revealed as they are completed and scaffolding is removed, such as the clock tower and Grade II-listed Albert Memorial.
Over the coming months, more of the beloved building will emerge from behind the scaffolding as further external work concludes. Albert Square will be progressively reopened in 2025, enabling the benefits of its transformation to be enjoyed ahead of final completion.
Challenges – impact on budget and timescales
The Executive will be asked when it meets on Wednesday 16 October to approve a £76m increase to the project’s capital budget to be funded through long-term borrowing.
As previously stated, the Our Town Hall project is the largest and most complex heritage project currently underway in the UK. Most construction schemes take place over shorter periods. But, unusually, long-term heritage projects such as this one span several economic cycles which makes the landscape they will be delivered in difficult to predict at the point when they are being planned.
The original budget contained a significant amount of contingency funding – £49m – for unforeseen events. Yet the scale and combined impact of unpredictable, and in some cases unprecedented, events beyond our control which have arisen in the last few years has meant that even this prudent buffer was not enough.
The project has been hit by the combined disruptive impacts of major external events such as the global Covid pandemic, hyperinflation in the construction industry and the war in Ukraine.
Further challenges have been discovered throughout the project. Although extensive survey work was carried out in advance, there are some issues which can only emerge once the project team reach previously inaccessible places – within the fabric of the building or at high-level.
These challenges range from minor obstructions and quirks from the original construction all the way through to structural issues which require design solutions before work can continue. Some hard-to-access parts of the building have been found to be in worse condition than originally anticipated, underlining the need for repair and restoration.
Since the last formal update in July 2023, not a single week has passed without another issue being unearthed that has time and cost implications. That 2023 update flagged that the main remaining risks related to the roof, stone repairs, the installation of services and fire compliance and so it has proved.
Work to repair and restore the building’s enormous roof has uncovered more than 120 separate issues which have required extra work and in many cases design solutions – from instances of rotten timbers being found to changes being required to original detailing which was letting in rainwater.
There have been 50 instances where the stonework was found to be in worse condition than originally anticipated and in need of repair.
Issues uncovered by holes being made for pipes, wires and ducts to provide essential services to the building have been responsible for a further 22 instances of delay.
Repair and restoration timescales are also being impacted by the challenge of ensuring that an intricate Victorian building meets stringent post-Grenfell fire safety standards. Not only is there a construction industry-wide shortage of fire-certified products but the unique nature of the listed building means that off-the-shelf solutions cannot be employed and bespoke designs have to be developed. For example, hundreds of existing heritage doors still need to be upgraded to achieve the level of fire resistance required to achieve modern safety standards. The upgrades required could not be determined until the doors were stripped of decades of paint and the original door construction examined.
However, the biggest cost of addressing these issues is not from the extra work and materials required but from knock-on impacts of delays, particularly financial claims from contractors whose workers have had to be temporarily stood down or remain on site for longer than originally envisaged. The Council is robustly negotiating more than 80 such claims to ensure a fair outcome.
The July 2023 update warned that the impact of delays to that point could push the completion date back by up to two years from its scheduled finish date in 2024. Despite the best efforts of the team to reduce the timescales, and given the ongoing challenges, the management contractors are currently forecasting a completion date in July 2026.
Next Steps
A report will be brought back to the Resources and Governance scrutiny committee in spring 2025 to further update on progress.
Deputy Council Leader Councillor Garry Bridges said: “This is a once-in-a-century undertaking which will benefit the city for many decades to come. The end result will be worth the wait.
“We will give this iconic building and Albert Square back to the people of Manchester not just in the best shape since they were created but more welcoming and more accessible so everyone can enjoy and share in their history and heritage for generations to come.
“The challenges and complications involved have increased costs and of course this is not where we wanted to be. But failure to carry out essential work on the town hall, allowing it to slip into disrepair, decay and disuse, would have been more costly in the long-run without creating anything like the same positive legacy for the city.
“We look forward to sharing the results of this project. They will become increasingly evident over the months ahead as sections are completed, scaffolding is removed and more of the enlarged square is restored to public use. Most of all we look forward to throwing open the doors of the town hall to the people of Manchester and a programme of re-opening events is being developed.
“This is at testing moment but what the Our Town Hall project will deliver for Manchester will stand the test of time.”
The Our Town Hall update report will be considered by the Council’s Resources and Governance scrutiny committee on Thursday 10 October and its Executive on Wednesday 16 October.
