County Hall, Cwmbran () was a municipal facility on Turnpike Road in

Croesyceiliog Croesyceiliog (; ) is a suburb and community of Cwmbran, Torfaen, Wales. Housing Croesyceiliog is primarily a residential district and contains a wide variety of housing from Victorian terraces and even older Welsh cottages to property built ...

Cwmbran Cwmbran ( ; , also in use as an alternative spelling in English) is a town in the county borough of Torfaen in South Wales. Lying within the Historic counties of Wales, historic boundaries of Monmouthshire (historic), Monmouthshire, Cwmbran was ...

in Wales. It was the headquarters of Gwent County Council from 1978 to 1996 and of

Monmouthshire County Council Monmouthshire County Council (or simply Monmouthshire Council) () is the governing body for the Monmouthshire principal area – one of the unitary authorities of Wales. The current unitary authority was created in 1996 and covers the eastern ...

from 1996 to 2013.

History

For much of the 20th century

had held its meetings in the Shire Hall in Newport. After finding that the Shire Hall facilities were too cramped, county leaders decided to procure modern facilities: the site they selected was open land to the east of Turnpike Road in

. Construction of the new building started in 1969. Following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

, the new building was destined to become the home of Gwent County Council. It was designed by Robert Matthew Johnson Marshall, built at a cost of £9 million and was officially opened by

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was al ...

on 19 April 1978. The design for the seven-storey building involved a two winged structure; each of the wings featured continuous bands of glazing with concrete panels above and below; there was a separate low-rise structure containing the council chamber and there was a bunker in the basement for the use of county leaders in the case of a nuclear attack. On 1 April 1996, under the

Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 (c. 19) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which amended the Local Government Act 1972 to create the current local government structure in Wales of 22 unitary authority areas, referred to as ...

, Gwent was abolished and the building was acquired by the newly formed

. However, after the building was found to have concrete cancer, and the potential rectification work required was estimated at £30 million, the county council decided it had no further use for the building. After the county council had moved to smaller offices at Usk in May 2013, County Hall in Cwmbran was demolished and the cleared site was sold to Kier Group for a residential development involving 140 new houses.

Notes

References

{{Government buildings in Wales County halls in Wales Buildings and structures in Torfaen Government buildings completed in 1978