Sunderland City Council needs to consult on civic centre plans

Their decision to demolish the civic centre is of itself not without merit, but they should be ashamed to have allowed it to deteriorate to its current state.

As for needing somewhere smaller, I could not agree more and they should use this decision as a catalyst to take a serious look as to whether we need as many councillors, and really modernise the way they work.

As for the civic centre relocation it most definitely does not want to be built on the Vaux site, particularly whilst we have numerous buildings standing empty which could be successfully adapted, and are all within central locations.

By utilising these buildings the city council and its population could take time to seriously examine and discuss whether we need another civic centre, its design and location, without pressure of being time limited.

I do though have some serous reservations about part of the council’s proposals, and that relates to the current site once the civic centre is demolished.

Before the current civic centre was built the land was a park, and lots of objections were raised about taking out of use land given to the then town for a park.

The reasons given at the time, it was a civic building the citizens had access to, and did not contravene any covenants.

Whilst I do not know, I am not aware that this restriction has changed and so the land should not be used for housing, to do so would take the land away from the citizens forever.

Unless the council or someone can show me the covenant is not now in place then the land in question should revert to open park land as it once was.

Ray Taylor