Nantwich Civic Hall dumped as election night count centre

Nantwich Civic Hall is being ditched as the venue for the General Election count in 2015 – because it is too small!

The Market Street venue was taken over by Nantwich Town Council from Cheshire East, and as part of the deal was asked to keep it free on May 7-9.

This is when the General Election, borough election and town/parish council elections will be held.

But now Cheshire East, the authority which organises polling around the borough and the election counts, think the Civic Hall won’t be able to cope with the amount of votes.

Nantwich Town Cllr Arthur Moran voiced concern that the change of mind could cost the hall and the council vital revenue.

He said: “Those dates were taken by Cheshire East to reserve it for May 7, 8 and 9 for the counting of votes. It was also reserved on the May 10.

“The parliamentary vote count will be on Thursday night, Cheshire East on the Friday and town and parish on the Saturday.

“Now they’ve decided they are going to take the count elsewhere because they say the hall isn’t big enough.

“But civic hall management have had to move people and other bookings out of there for the elections, and of course have not rescheduled anything.”

Deputy Mayor Cllr Andrew Martin said:  “I had the same concern when I saw this had happened, but they are saying it is simply a sizing issue.”

Cllr David Marren, who also sits on Cheshire East, said he had spoken to Cheshire East’s deputy monitoring officer.

“The explanation given to me was because the fact there are three elections taking place, it’s a size issue with the hall.

“He gave us an assurance that it would be in use again in the future, and that this is an exception.”

Cheshire East has not announced where the election counts will be held.

Meanwhile, the town council has agreed to refurbish the Civic Hall toilets at a cost of between £65,000 and £80,000.

Councillors are expected to appoint a contractor for the work in November with work hopefully starting in January 2015.