St David's Hall repairs expected to cost £50m
Florence Lockheart
Monday, October 30, 2023
The hall will be closed until 2025 to allow repair works to take place, while venue staff will be offered redeployment or voluntary severance
Following further investigation into St David's Hall’s Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) panels, Cardiff Council has announced that the venue will remain closed until 2025 to allow repair works costing around £50m to take place.
Experts who carried out checks on the venue confirmed that several panels in the roof containing RAAC are 'red-critical' or 'red-high risk', which means they are at risk of collapse and the roof will need to be completely replaced. The repairs, estimated to cost around £50m, could present a problem for transferring the running of the venue to Academy Music Group (AMG) which has confirmed a conditional 45-year lease.
The conditional lease means AMG would only take on the full lease when planning approval and listed building consent for the works are confirmed. The venue would then pay for the roof replacement and refurbishment works. Asked if there was a risk AMG would not take over the venue, Cardiff Council leader Huw Thomas said: ‘I'm not saying there is no risk, but our understanding is that [AMG is] committed to this project.’
The prolonged period of closure means that permanent staff and agency staff with more than two years of service at the venue will be offered voluntary severance and potential redeployment. Agency staff with less than two years of service will be released from their roles. In a meeting last week, the council confirmed that regulations allowing staff at the venue to have their jobs transferred to AMG were ‘unlikely to apply’ as the hall would be closed at the time of transfer, but Tracey Thomas, chief officer for HR at Cardiff Council, said staff and trade unions are ‘comfortable with that position’.
If all eligible staff at the venue took voluntary severance it would cost the council around £1m. Donna Jones, Cardiff Council’s assistant director of county estates, said AMG may be able to offer some staff opportunities at other venues and added: ‘Obviously, there will be staff who would be interested in other opportunities in the council and we will be encouraging those staff and supporting them into opportunities within the council that are suitable to meet their skills.’
Work on St David's Hall could commence as early as July 2024 following the determination of listed building consent for the venue, but if planning permission is required for work to start this could it back to October 2024. AMG is aiming to reopen before the next Cardiff Singer of the World competition in July 2025.
