A FORMER mayor of Bicester has rejected calls for the crumbling civic mansion house to be refurbished — and instead wants to see it demolished.
Town and district councillor Debbie Pickford said refurbishment was not the answer for 120-year-old Garth House – the current home of the town council, Citizens Advice Bureau and register office.
And she said she wanted to see diggers roll on to the site within 18 months.
She said councillors should consider building a facility that would provide for the town’s dramatically increasing population for the next 100 years.
Her vision includes a cultural centre with exhibitions and displays as well as a replacement for the current facilities at the site.
Miss Pickford, the town council leader, said people were not realistic about Garth House, which had no architectural or historic importance, and was in a bad state of repair.
The top floor of the building cannot be used because it is damp, and has a leaking roof and rotting floor. The rest of the building needs major repairs, suffers damp patches and has areas of loose plaster.
But town and district councillor Les Sibley called for a town poll and said the people should decide.
Miss Pickford said: “I would like to have diggers in within 18 months.
“Really and truly we need to do what’s best for the size of Bicester.
“Sometimes old things have to move out of the way.”
She warned if Bicester were to see a steep rise in its population — 5,000 homes are proposed at an eco suburb on farmland in North West Bicester, and thousands of houses planned over the next two decades — the building would not be big enough to cater for the town’s needs.
She said: “I’m not saying that this will be the decision, but sometimes things have to move out of the way to allow the best for the town for the next hundred years, and it’s not going to be refurbishment.”
The move comes after three different plans for the future of the building were withdrawn.
Cherwell District Council said more work was needed before it could consider the applications, including staging a bat survey.
Options include demolishing the house, repairing and extending it, or as previously voted for in a town referendum, retaining the frontage and extending the house.
Mr Sibley said townspeople should be given full details of the three options and left to decide.
He said: “I will run a town poll and whichever option is voted for I will support.
“This house was left to people of Bicester in trust.
“It’s for the people of Bicester to decide what they want to happen to the house.
“Something has to be done to Garth House, but we should let the people decide – not the councillors.”
More than six years ago, a town referendum overwhelmingly voted to maintain the front facade of Garth House, which was donated to the town in 1947.
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