Historic town hall building regeneration ‘to be completed by 2030’

The regeneration of the historic Ashton Town Hall will be completed by 2030, council bosses have vowed.

The Grade-II listed building on Market Square, which opened in 1840, was closed in 2015 – and has been sealed off and surrounded by scaffolding since.

Recently £3.4m worth of works restructuring the façade were completed, but there is still work to be done to bring the building back to its former glory.

The latest structural works were done to ensure the town hall doesn’t deteriorate any further. Inside the building has gone to rack and ruin, with previous council reports revealing ‘significant damage’ occurred when the physical link between the town hall and the Tameside Administrative Centre (TAC) was disconnected.

The building houses Civic Hall, which contains the former council chamber. Currently full council meetings take place at Dukinfield Town Hall and previously Guardsman Tony Downes House in Droylsden.

Speaking at the latest council meeting in Dukinfield Town Hall, council leader Eleanor Wills said: “We pledge to restore Ashton Town Hall, not merely as a heritage building, but as a civic symbol reborn. The heart of Ashton will beat anew with a town hall that doesn’t just belong to the past, but leads the future. This isn’t regeneration for nostalgia sake, it’s regeneration for identity sake. 

“Let this be a civic home that hosts possibility and a landmark where our borough’s character shines through.”

This project has been funded by a cash injection of £20m from the Levelling Up fund, secured by the council in 2021.

The town hall regeneration was one of Tameside council bosses’ three big pledges for the borough’s future. The second was ‘homes for all’, which essentially sets out a minimum requirement for new housing developments to have 20 per cent affordable housing included.

Affordable homes are houses that cost less than 80 pc of market rate. 

The third pledge outlined at the meeting on July 15 was ‘a borough in motion’. This vow was about having transport infrastructure that ‘works for all’, the council leader explained.

More frequent buses and trains that run on time was a core part of this pledge.

“Tameside must not be kept waiting,” Coun Wills added. “Not at the bus stop, not at a train station, or a tram stop.”