Supporting Cheltenham Borough Council to deliver a community focused future for an iconic town centre asset.
The Municipal Office is a landmark listed building in the heart of Cheltenham and has served as the headquarters of Cheltenham Borough Council for over a century. As the council adapted to a new hybrid working model, large parts of the building became underutilised. Cheltenham Borough Council turned to Anthony Collins and its commercial advisor Avison Young to help deliver a disposal and redevelopment strategy that would preserve the Municipal Office’s role in the town centre, unlocking new uses and avoiding long-term vacancy.
Our role focused on structuring a disposal process that balanced commercial flexibility with regulatory compliance, ensuring that Cheltenham Borough Council could retain a presence in the building and that the outcome would deliver lasting benefits for the local community.
We helped design a competitive, non-procurement process that enabled the council to appoint a preferred developer quickly and compliantly, while demonstrating delivery of best value and managing subsidy control and procurement risks. We worked with Cheltenham Borough Council to prepare a robust Report to Council, supporting transparent and resilient decision making.
Responding to public pressure from alternative proposals, we advised the council on evaluation to protect the process from legal challenge. Once the preferred bidder was identified, we led negotiations on Heads of Terms for an Exclusivity Agreement, ensuring all viability testing and due diligence would be completed within a controlled timeframe before any contractual commitment.
Looking ahead, we’re preparing the legal framework to secure delivery of a mixed-use scheme that retains the council’s presence in the Municipal Office while bringing the building back into wider economic and community use. Our support will also include negotiating overage protections, managing vacant possessions from other occupiers, and ensuring that contractual safeguards are in place should the scheme not progress as proposed.
Our work has enabled Cheltenham Borough Council to take confident, commercially-sound steps towards revitalising the Municipal Office to reflect local priorities and secure long-term value.
