Talks hope on multi-storey car park

A Stafford town centre car park is still closed almost a year after fears were raised over its safety.

But officials at Stafford Borough Council are now in talks which could see the future of the Bridge Street multi-storey car park resolved within weeks.

The council, which owns the car park, is in discussions with the business family leasing the building, which includes the former groundfloor supermarket site, over what can be done to repair it.

The 25-year-old car park, which has 466 spaces on six levels, was closed in September 2009 after a routine inspection revealed problems with part of the structure.

Although the building is in no danger of collapse the council was forced to close it indefinitely.

The car park sits atop the former Tesco supermarket.

It had been earmarked for closure as part of the £100 million pound Riverside development.

Building work on the site has been put on hold after the developer behind the scheme, Trent City Securities, went into liquidation.

The Moores family, which leases the entire building from Stafford Borough Council on a long-term basis, leases the car park space back to the borough council which owns the freehold. Now engineers are preparing a report which will go before ruling councillors within weeks which will reveal the extent of the problems and how much it could cost the authority to put them right.

Will Conaghan, spokesman for Stafford Borough Council said: "We are in discussions with the Moores family, who hold the head lease, and our structural engineers, looking at the cost of repairing the car park.

"We will then be preparing a report to cabinet over the next few weeks to consider the findings."

He said the council did not yet know what the final cost of the repairs would be until investigations by engineers were complete.

The Riverside regeneration project would have seen the building demolished and replaced with a multi-screen cinema and hotel.

The former 45,000 sq ft Tesco store had been boarded-up since the opening of the Tesco Extra on Newport Road in 2004.