When replacing Sunderland Civic Centre on the Vaux site was dismissed as a 'flight of fancy'

An artist's impression of how the new civic centre and public sector hub will look

In fact, when pressed on the possibility, the then-council leader, the late Paul Watson, dismissed the notion as a "flight of fancy".

Sunderland Conservatives were concerned in 2010 that Sunderland City Council was lining up to build a new civic centre on the Vaux site, which then-group leader Lee Martin felt would be an unsuitable use of prime development land as well as an unfair use of taxpayers' money.

At the time Tesco still owned the land and negotiations were ongoing to buy the former brewery site, on which development agency Sunderland arc planned to create 3,000 new jobs on a mixed-use development.

Coun Watson, however, said there had never been any plan to move the Sunderland City Council HQ from Burdon Road to the former brewery site and scoffed at the suggestion.

"This is just another one of Coun Martin's flights of fancy. I don't know where he's got it from," he told the Echo at the time.

"The costs involved would be immense. I think the public would be angered at the suggestion, to be honest."

Fast forward almost a decade and the position has changed somewhat.

Several years of successive funding cuts have left the civic centre oversized for a much leaner team of council staff.

Add to that the vast costs of maintaining the vast hexagonal building, which sprawls over a large footprint of land in the city centre, which sit at around £200,000 a year.The move would also free up land for much-needed housing, and be an injection of investment in the Vaux site.

Years of austerity and gloomy financial times mean less investment cash, public and private, is available for such mammoth redevelopment projects such as Vaux.

Speaking to the Echo at the end of last year as plans for the new building were unveiled, council leader Graeme Miller said: "(The Civic Centre) is too big now that our workforce has shrunk by 40%.

“It’s costing us upwards of £200,000 a year just to carry out essential repairs, and we’ve been told by independent assessors that the building will be functionally obsolete within the next five years.

"Building a new civic centre on the Vaux site would help lead the regeneration of the city centre, which is a priority for the council, by signalling to other developers that Sunderland is a good place to invest. "It would also free up land for a mixed residential development to be built on the site of the current civic centre, helping generate additional footfall in the city centre."

Not everyone has been happy, however, at the

£41million has been allocated for the new Civic Centre and Public Sector Hub over four years in the council's budget.A planning application was lodged in February for seven-storey and six-storey buildings on the site near Keel Square. The new plans are linked to ‘phase two’ of development on the Vaux site, which is being led by the council’s development partnership Siglion.

New plans include a 18,075 sqm business hub with ‘civic-related uses’, office space, a medical centre, a creche, a cafe/restaurant and a roof terrace.

If approved, construction could start later this year, with buildings offering a range of council and public services, alongside a new road link to Cumberland Street.

1,200 council employees will relocate to building and work alongside a number of public sector organisations.

The hub will include a small amount of commercial space, new footpaths, cycle bays and extra parking provided on the wider site.

To meet council targets to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, the new building could also use solar hot water heating.

A planning statement added: “The building has been designed into three distinctive sections, which relates to the makeup of buildings within the existing urban area. “To reflect that the building shares a frontage to the city centre and therefore is required to be contemporary yet in-keeping of the existing urban grain.”