Major changes coming to landmark building

5 hours ago

Owen SennittNorfolk

News image — Building work on Norwich City Hall started in 1936 and it was completed two years later

Martin Barber/BBC A drone image looks down on a four-storey city hall made of red brick, featuring white windows, a balcony with columns above the main entrance steps, and a clock tower on the right corner of the building. It is surrounded by the trees and buildings of a city's urban centre, including a large cathedral on the horizon. — Building work on Norwich City Hall started in 1936 and it was completed two years later

A landmark building's entrance is about to be transformed through a £625,000 project which comes ahead of plans for a wider multimillion-pound revamp.

Contractors will start making improvements to the entrance of City Hall in Norwich later this month to make it more accessible.

The work includes creating a new glass ramp at the front of the 1930s building and also creating a new lift for wheelchair users.

Lucy Galvin, Green Party leader of Norwich City Council, said the changes would mean that for the first time "everyone will be able to come through the front door".

"City Hall is the people's place and we are at last taking steps to make it welcoming, inclusive and accessible to all," she said.

The new glass ramp would "not detract from the façade," she added.

Owen Sennitt/BBC A lion statue can be seen on a plinth next to a staircase that leads to Norwich City Hall — Currently there is no disabled access through the main front doors, opposite the covered market, with wheelchair users having to use side entrances instead

Norwich City Council A sketch showing designs for a new access ramp in front of Norwich City Hall. It runs along the front of the building from the pavement to the top of the entrance steps. — A drawing of how the access ramp would look at the front of City Hall

Other changes included new disabled changing spaces, a baby changing space and extra toilet provision. Doors would also be automated.

The work will be undertaken by Willan Building Contractors Ltd in the coming weeks.

City Hall is a Grade II* listed building known for its Art Deco style, built by architects Charles Holloway James and Stephen Rowland Pierce.

It opened in 1938 following a major revamp of the historic market place and St Peters Street to make space for the building.

Hawkins Brown A ramp with glass panels along the side of it leads up to a grand building with neoclassical pillars, with a man pushing a pram walking up it — The ramp outside City Hall could look similar to the ramp installed outside the Royal College of Surgeons building in London

Further changes to modernise City Hall through a multimillion-pound project continue to be developed.

First proposed by the previous Labour administration, the council says the building needs to be modernised to mitigate running costs of £2m a year.

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Reimagining City Hall could generate between £53m and £104m in economic benefits, the council claimed.

Galvin added: "We will be unveiling our long-awaited wider plans later this year to make City Hall a more modern, open and relevant public space to protect it for the future without compromising its Grade II* listed status."

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