A COUNCIL building, which has seen £250,000 worth of improvements carried out in recent years, is to be abandoned because the authority cannot afford to pay for repairs.

Derwentside District Council will now ask for permission to sub-let the Tommy Armstrong Centre in Clifford Road, Stanley, even though the authority has 15 years of its own lease on the building left to run.

The council executive decided to give up on the centre it moved in to just 14 years ago, after being told it would cost £330,000 to repair a heating and ventilation system.

The 27 council staff based at the centre, to collect rent and council tax, moved out last September when the system first broke down.

They were re-housed temporarily at the nearby council offices in Stanley Front Street, but councillors decided to make the move permanent when they concluded it was better to invest in another council building.

Councillors on the authority's scrutiny committee will now debate plans to spend £120,000 on the Stanley Front Street council offices next week.

Council leader Alex Watson said that, with hindsight, it had been a bad decision to move into the then-new Tommy Armstrong Centre, opened 14 years ago and named after the famous mining poet of the 19th Century.

He said: "At the time there was Presto, Conroys and the Post Office in the area, as well as Stanley Central Club, so it was very convenient.

"Unfortunately, the street has changed and the value of the centre has depreciated. We spent a lot of money on the place, including installing a suspended ceiling and had staff going ill with 'sick building syndrome' because there was no natural light.

"It was a difficult decision to make, to leave it permanently, but in the end it was thought it would be better to support our heritage and invest in our own building. We will discuss with the owners the possibility of sub-letting the place."

The £120,000 investment for Stanley Front Street's council offices will be used to create more office space, interview rooms and toilets.

Figures for the council's yearly rent for the centre were not available yesterday. The scrutiny committee will examine the cabinet's decision on Wednesday, at Consett Civic Centre.