Mr Shifty,

For clarity, the land you refer to is not the property of any Council

It seems on the surface a good idea but why use this particular site?
If the Tesco plan doesn't go ahead on the Viaduct New Road on what is County Council land why not build it there. It's a brown field site, handy for the City Centre and can include parking too.

Just a minute Councillors Young/Hendry...... BEFORE even thinking about new buildings, isn't it time to tackle the merger of county/districts in Cumbria to rid us of the costly outdated two tier system. Surely you have to sort out the organisational structures BEFORE embarking on any fancy building schemes. And let's recycle the Civic Centre as the first option. It will never be a hotel. Perhaps if council staff started to pay for car parking at the Sands there would be a bit of money for a green makeover for the Civic Centre - just an idea!

Have those bemoaning the loss of surface car parking at William St considered that the County Council may be proposing decked parking with offices over? Surface car parking is the worst possible use of city centre sites.

People are so obtuse. William Street is not a central car park, I would hate to carry bag loads of shopping from the city centre to there. The old council properties will be auctioned off like the old registry office. I really dont see why people dont use public transport, Carlisle now has the best service than the rest of Cumbria. And another point, the land is already owns the land so shouldnt they be able to do what they want? As I said earlier its up to the City Council to build new parks.

In a time of energy regulation, a brand new build is much better than having twenty or so old tatty buildings that seap energy like a sieve. It doesnt matter what happens somebody somewhere is never going to be happy and us Cumbrians (coming from someone raised in carlisle but live in the west) are some of crankiest and anti-change in the country.

This will result in the loss of hundreds of long stay public parking places yet there is no mention of where the council will replace them. Have they considered this and if so, do they have a Plan B?

Will there be free staff parking or will the staff have to use less available public spaces? We need to know how they will replace the lost spaces (almost 400 in total if they also build on the Cecil St car park or stop the public using it. Perhaps the N&S could ask this and print the response in the next article on the subject please.

4 Star Hotel at the Civic? Most decent 4 star hotels have a large conference room and swimming pool, perhaps that's why the council want to expand the Sands and build a pool there! Seriously, the building would require a fortune spent on it to convert it into a hotel and it's hardly in the most scenic of places. Would there be demand for the necessary guest nights to maintain such a large hotel, after all, one of the citys long open hotels is in receivership at the moment and many others aren't exactly filled to the brim.

I'd hazard a guess that if they do combine the HQ's (which is a good idea I think) the civic will end up being a boarded up eyesore (as opposed to just an eyesore).

Make best use of the existing buildings-we do not need more empty ones!Reclad/Refurbish the civic centre and put the County and City in together- build new offices to support expansion as needs be.....and meanwhile press on with the unitary authority to avoid councillor duplication!

Here we go again,another half baked plan .Lets do away with much needed city centre parking, add another 1000 cars to the already congested Tait street and hope someone wants to buy a multi story car park !
But on the other hand maybe they could dissmantle the millenium bridge and use the steel in the new building.

Brilliant, and where will anyone park down that end of town once the car park is gone? Every council plan always seems to involve losing car parking spaces (see the sands swimming pool, castle street etc) in places that need them.

The car park is quite busy as it is and it's not like there's anywhere else on that side of town. The viaduct would probally be the closest and even if everyone switched to that there wouldn't be enough spaces.

From there history regarding car parking I can only assume they want to slowly drive everyone out of the town centre for everything apart from drinking and buying takeaway kebabs.

@Cumbrian Resident the reason why the HQ is in Carlisle is because Carlisle is the Administrative Capital of Cumbria. To me, it would make more sense having it at William Street as it is still kind of central and if the City Council could decide to build a car park on Warwick Street which would be better in all fairness as its closer to shops that people actually use. Hell, I am sometimes ashamed to be Cumbrian because of the backwards sensibility of half the residents - damned if we do, damned if we don't.

The idea to extend the Civic Centre facility would be too costly as it would technically be being leased to the County Council.