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City Hall closed as an entertainment venue in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but since December 2020 it has been used as a mass vaccination centre to support the efforts to keep as many people protected from COVID-19 as possible.
In August 2022, it was confirmed that the NHS has signed a six-month extension to its lease of City Hall, which will see them continue to use the venue until the end of March 2023.
In the meantime, we continue to plan for the venue's future beyond the lease's expiry, with a comprehensive report due to be presented at a future cabinet meeting, likely to be in the coming months. The paper will outline the options available and provide more analysis of our recent soft market test exercise, which established the possible interest of organisations running the venue on the council's behalf. This exercise was carried out during April and May 2022. A number of organisations replied to our questionnaire.
The soft market testing was just one mechanism used to help establish the best way forward for the venue, as we continue to actively look at all the options available to get the building back up and running as an entertainment and cultural venue beyond when the NHS require it.
If you have any questions please contact arts@wiltshire.gov.uk If your question relates to the Vaccination Centre please visit the NHS website.
Frequently asked questions
It is our intention to open it up as an entertainment/cultural venue, but we can't say when at this stage, although we will be keen to reopen it as quickly as possible after the NHS no longer needs to use the building. The NHS will be using the building until March 2023.
We haven't made that decision, but we are assessing the options available to us so that when the building does reopen it is sustainable and there for the long-term.
Given the uncertainty of the sector at that point, and the fact the closure time would be significant, we believe we made the right decision, albeit a very difficult one. City Hall staff were given the opportunity to redeploy into other positions. Entertainment venues folded during the pandemic, but in effectively mothballing City Hall, we feel we made the right decision at an uncertain time.
It is not our intention to sell the building. We see a bright future for City Hall and we want to see it re-open and continue to play a key role in the city's entertainment and cultural offer.
This process involved speaking to organisations within the entertainment/cultural sector who are potentially interested in running the building on our behalf. Parties expressed an interest in being involved in this process and we will decide, based on a number of factors, whether to have further more detailed conversations with them. It has been a useful way for us to identify and answer questions we may have before deciding to commit to a certain approach. A number of organisations replied to our questionnaire and those responses are in the process of being analysed.
That is certainly an option, but if we decide to do that we have to ensure the venue is sustainable and will be there for the long-term. The financial climate is challenging at the moment but we certainly haven't ruled out running the venue ourselves.
No final decisions have been made, but a third party potentially running the building could be a financially sustainable way of seeing the venue thrive for the long-term.
We need a modern library in Salisbury and it's certainly an option for it to move to City Hall. However, nothing is decided and if it did happen it would not be at the expense of City Hall being an entertainment/cultural venue.
