Extra £1m to be spent fixing Rochdale town hall clock and steps

An extra £1m is set to be spent repairing the Rochdale Town Hall clock and the historic steps behind the building, it has been revealed.

Essential repairs and upgrades to the town hall’s clock as well as the medieval-period steps are set to cost the council £1.08m next year. This forms part of £3.5m of extra spending approved by the council – to be paid for by borrowing.

Rochdale Council has stressed this price quoted is a high estimate, and they expect the actual fee for the works to be much lower.

Since the town hall reopened earlier this year, locals on social media and around the town centre have repeatedly mentioned the town hall clock not moving.

The council has explained that the clock is working, thanks to some temporary repairs – but larger scale works are needed for a longer-term fix. The largest chunk of the money will actually be spent fixing the steps at Church Stile, which leads up to the Parish Church of St Chad on the hill behind the town hall.

The work is required to ‘bring them up to modern safety standards’, according to the council.

Recent budget papers have outlined £180,000 to pay for the clock works. The other £900,000 has been allocated to repair the historic steps.

 

 

A council spokesperson said: “The steps at Church Stile date back to the Medieval period and are now in a significant state of disrepair and are unsafe to use.

“The historic significance of this site, coupled with the fact that it is in a conservation area, requires a high standard of work, including the use of high quality, heritage materials, to ensure the historic appearance and fabric of the structure is maintained.

“In addition, where parts of the structure have been replaced in the past with more modern fixtures, such as the lights, we will seek to instate heritage style ones which are more in keeping with the surrounding area and will significantly enhance the visual appearance of this key part of Rochdale town centre.”

 

 

Speaking on the clock repairs, a council spokesperson added: “As the mechanism on the clock itself is over 60 years old and the dials are also very old, a larger scale repair will be required to ensure that the clock can service us for many more years into the future, without the need for regular and ongoing repairs, which are costly, given how specialist the work is.

“Scaffolding would also need to be erected and this is a considerable expense in its own right.”

The town hall officially reopened earlier this year after more than £20m was spent restoring the Grade-I listed building. However, works are not complete with the western wing and the council chamber still to be upgraded.

2025 is the year when the Grade-I listed building fully reopens – with the council expected to host their first meeting in years within the old council chamber. Meetings have been held in Number One Riverside since the town hall closed in 2020.

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter