Former council leader accuses Labour of letting Earlestown Town Hall 'deteriorate'

From 1895 up until the early 2000s Earlestown Town Hall was used for civic activities and housed district council offices.

The historic building closed in 2008 when the Liberal Democrats controlled St Helens Council under a power share agreement with the Conservatives.

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Prior to the closure the council had been in talks for Halton and St Helens Primary Care Trust (PCT) to take over the building.

But talks collapsed after the town hall was named as a Grade II listed building as part of English Heritage’s ‘Buildings at Risk’ campaign.

The PCT had wanted to partially demolish the building, which led to a campaign led by concerned residents to get it listed status.

Brian Spencer led the council from 2006 under a power-share agreement with the Tories until 2010, when Labour regained overall control.

He claimed the Lib Dems did not actually shut the historic building – contrary to claims from Labour – saying the building “shut itself”.

Brian Spencer, former Lib Dem councillor and leader of St Helens Council

Mr Spencer, who lost his seat on the council in 2012, said: “We support bringing Earlestown Town Hall back into public use, we always have.

“We started in 2008. The last tenant was Helena Housing and we wanted to bring in the PCT. Nothing has happened for 10 years.

“If Labour really wanted to do something with it, why has it taken 10 years to do something about it?

“They’ve left it for 10 years to deteriorate.”

Helena Housing vacated their officer in Earlestown Town Hall in 2008 when the building closed.

Labour’s Seve Gomez-Aspron, ward councillor for Newton, has claimed Helena were evicted by the Lib Dem-controlled council.

But Mr Spencer said this is “total nonsense” and a “complete fabrication”.

“We wanted offices in Newton, we begged them to stay to give us a local office,” the former council leader said.

“We were getting a good income from Helena.

“Why would we want to do that? Why would we evict someone that was paying rent?

“It doesn’t make sense.”

Mr Spencer’s version of events has led to Cllr Gomez-Aspron accusing the Lib Dems of trying to “whitewash history”, with the local elections looming.

Labour councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron

“The Lib Dem-run council ran Earlestown Town Hall down, then closed it in 2008. That’s simply a fact,” Cllr Gomez-Aspron said.

“They then proposed to demolish most of it for a PCT building, which led to residents such as Pat Collier applying to list and save the building, otherwise it would mostly now be rubble.

“I’ve always also been critical that after 2010, plans didn’t move fast enough for the building, but that was against the backdrop of £100 million cuts from the Lib Dem and Tory government at the time.

“Whether it be locally by closing it, or nationally by ravaging local government funding to our council, the blame sits squarely with the Lib Dems – however much they try to reinvent history.”

Earlier this month St Helens Council launched a public consultation on the future of Earlestown Town Hall.

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Linking into this, a planning application has been submitted by St Helens Council to demolish outbuildings built as an extension to the main building in the 1960s, and to restore the windows and doors to the rear of the building.

A separate application has also been submitted seeking listed building consent to carry out the work.

Cllr Gomez-Aspron said: “I hope that the recent announcement by the Labour council provides a long-term solution and has my backing 100 per cent to bring this iconic building back into use for the public of Newton-le-Willows”