Old County Hall
Some years ago, I was lucky enough to be a joint remember representing an amalgamated ward in Truro on Cornwall Council alongside Mrs Doris Ansari. We were presented with proposals to sell Old County Hall. We were told there was an offer which we were recommended to support. When we asked if this one bid was the only bid, we were told there were two others. One was not credible. The other was from Cornwall Care. We perked up and asked what their proposal was?
After a good deal of prevarication and obfuscation we discovered that Cornwall Care wanted to buy Old County Hall and use it to provide a new residential care home in Truro in order to replace Mountford House and Redannick. In addition, the charitable company wished to construct a new 20+bed nursing unit. This could have been a great help in alleviating the bed-blocking problem at Treliske Hospital.
Mrs Ansari and I knew that Cornwall care was a company, set up by Cornwall ‘County’ Council in the 1990s, to provide residential care services. It was endowed with all the Council’s care homes. Ever since, it has been a key provider of residential care services to people referred by Cornwall Social Services. If it wished to sell a Council care home then the Council’s consent was needed. In this case, they wished to use the proceeds of sale to finance the OCH project.
We both felt strongly that this was the best option – it would be useful. It would deal with a public service problem, and would keep OCH in the public domain. We walked into a brick wall!
The sale was made, despite our strong views (so much for the influence of the ‘local member’!) to a Falmouth-based hotel chain. It was later sold, and, as we can all see, is now for sale yet again – nothing has happened. Cornwall Council has deemed it necessary to sell Cornwall Care to Sanctuary Housing Association. Bed-blocking still deepens the pressures on Treliske.
Old County Hall is a fine building. Its hard to tell what has happened inside, but it remains an important part of Cornwall’s story. If it could be made useful within the public domain then that would be the best outcome for a saga which has dragged embarrassingly on and on.
Therefore, in order to find a good productive future for a fine example of early C20th architecture, , why don’t Cornwall Council and Sanctuary HA bite the bullet and buy back this significant and much-loved building, and do what Cornwall Care proposed in the first place? It would a be a practical solution to a big (and least talked about) problem in Truro. It’s an old-fashioned thing to say but I also suggest that, as well as being practical, repurchasing Old County Hall and repurposing it for residential care would be an honourable thing to do.
Bert Biscoe
Truro
25th July 2024
