County Hall staff to be moved from Hertford to Stevenage

Landmark building’s future use now uncertain

Hertfordshire County Council is set to move the majority of its services and staff out of County Hall in Hertford to its Stevenage office campus.

The plans were agreed by the council’s cabinet which met on Monday 10th July.

Councillors heard that since the pandemic when staff were forced to work from home, hybrid working has become the norm and County Hall has been running on average at just 18% occupation. It’s a similar story at Stevenage although occupancy there is higher at 53%.

Despite this the council has been running both facilities as if they were at full capacity, which, it says, is neither cost effective nor in line with its sustainability objectives.

It could stop hybrid working but an evaluation exercise found that 90% of respondents said it was important to them with 75% saying it increased the likelihood of them staying working for the council.

County Hall is the council’s most expensive building to operate and the size, age and listed status of parts of the site restrict what can be done to modernise working there and improve sustainability. Stevenage meanwhile has had significant recent investment to improve the sustainability of the buildings in Gunnels Wood Road as well as the quality of the office environment.

The cabinet agreed that staff would begin moving there from Hertford from September.

The front section of the County