There are two aspects: (1) to improve the facilities and spruce up parts like the toilets inside and also the hall which needs repainting and general care and attention and, (2) to expand the capacity of the whole building so the current staff in the Church Street council office can be moved in.

Part of the aim is to make the Town Hall more of a public building where people could walk in easily to use council services.

The council reckons that the money can be found from the state government’s Cultural Fund for historic buildings, out of existing reserves and from money to be refunded by the RFS when its new control centre on Lambeth Street is up and running – Glen Innes Severn Council put up some of the money for the new centre and will get that back.

If the existing premises on Church Street could be leased or sold, that revenue would be a bonus.

The proposal is to be considered at the monthly council meeting on Thursday night at the library (one part of the Town Hall refurbishment plan is to create a council chamber there).

Mayor Steve Toms said: “There would be minimal budget impact”.

He said the Town Hall facade would be unchanged and there would be little noticeable change at the back. The “foot-print” of the building wouldn’t be greater – the expansion would be upwards, with new storeys on lower, single-storey parts.

if the plan goes ahead (as seems likely), there would a knock on effect in that any plan to expand the gallery would falter. 

When the library was opened in 2004, it went over budget so the gallery wasn’t as big as it might have been. There may be NSW money to put that right but the state would be unlikely to give money for the Town Hall and the gallery in the same year.

The council’s General manager, Hein Basson, said that “if it boils down to a choice between the co-location of Council’s administrative offices and the expansion of the Art Gallery, the first-mentioned project should be much higher on the priority list than the other one.”