Councils £8.3 million Voreda House to open for business on 17th of June

The over budget and substantially delayed Voreda House is finally set to open its doors for business on Monday the 17th of June as the new Penrith hub for Westmorland and Furness Council staff.

Penrith Town Hall and Mansion house will close their doors on Friday the 14th of June brings to an end over a century of local government in the two buildings in the town.

Voreda House was a project started by the former Eden District Council to be the UK’s first large-scale Passivhaus Standard office building retrofit and form the single site head quarters for the now scrapped council.

Following local government reorganisation that disbanded Eden District Council the new Westmorland and Furness Council agreed to continue the development of the project that has seen costs spiral to £8.3million and substantial delays to the controversial building.

Westmorland and Furness Council will be joined in the building by a partner organisation Calc Ltd “Cumbria association of Local Councils” a membership representative organisation that town and parish councils pay an annual subscription to be members of. Calc is relocating to Voreda House from it’s current HQ at Penrith Community Fire Station.

A spokesperson for Westmorland and Furness Council said “The transfer of staff teams into Voreda House has progressed well and we are on course for those moves to be complete by the end of next week and for the doors to be open for public inquiries and access to services by Monday 17 June.”

“The timeline between the building work being complete and moving in of staff teams has been tightly managed to ensure we can be operational as soon as possible.”

When asked about changes to the council’s services following the move to Voreda House would bring the council said “We will be communicating any changes to services next week and any customer who requires information in the meantime is advised to contact the service directly.”

On the question about the future of the Town Hall following its closure next Friday the council spokes person said “Work is underway looking at options for the future of Penrith Town Hall and these will be considered at a later date.”

Westmorland and Furness Council council revealed in November it was conducting an internal audit review in the delivery of Voreda House was at the time expected to be completed by January but has itself been delayed with not firm date the audit report will be completed.