ONE of Truro’s grandest buildings is up for sale for the fifth time in just over a decade.

Agents Miller Commercial are inviting offers in excess £2.6-million for Old County Hall on Station Road.

The Grade II listed building has been sold several times since 2012, and has lain empty despite being subject to several planning applications and permissions.

Cornwall Council sold Old County Hall for £1.2-million to Nigel Carpenter, owner of St Michael’s Hotel & Spa in Falmouth, in 2012. Planning permission was granted in April 2013 to convert it into a 42-bedroom boutique hotel and spa at an estimated cost of £10-million.

However, the property was placed back on the market for £3-million in 2015, and was later snapped up by newly-established developers Wolf Rock Cornwall Ltd for an undisclosed sum.

Last year, Cornwall Council approved plans from yet another party to convert Old County Hall into student accommodation, but there has been no sign of this happening.

Truro city councillor Bert Biscoe was an elected member of Cornwall Council at the time of the original sale. “I objected to it then – I felt that if the council was not going to use the building, it would be a good idea to find a use that would keep it in the public domain,” he said. “It’s a disgrace it’s been sitting there empty. It’s a disgrace on the people who sold it, and the people who bought it and haven’t been able to pull it together to do something with it.”

Mr Biscoe, who also challenged the valuation before the original sale, described the £2.6-million price-tag as “knock-down”, and recommended it be adapted to ease the Duchy’s overburdened healthcare services.

“In my view, bearing in mind that the care situation in Truro is no better now than it was in 2012, with bed-blocking at Treliske and with all those extra people planned for Langarth, the public sector should re-acquire Old County Hall and repurpose it to serve the community of Cornwall,” he said.

Following the implementation of the Local Government Act 1888, which established councils in every county, it became necessary to find a meeting place for Cornwall County Council. The council chose to meet in Truro rather than Bodmin’s Shire Hall, which had been used as the venue for the county’s main court.

Cornwall County Council meetings were initially held at the Municipal Buildings in the city centre, but council leaders decided there should be a purpose-built county hall with space for council meetings.

Fields near the city’s railway station were purchased and County Hall was built between 1910 and 1912 to a Neo-Georgian design by Thomas Ball Silcock. It served as the council’s headquarters until 1966, when the council moved to its new Brutalist-stylebuilding on Treyew Road, granting its former home the Old prefix.

The building was also used by the Cornwall Record Office until its relocation in 2019 to Kresen Kernow in Redruth.

The most recent application for planning permission to be approved by Cornwall Council was received in August last year on behalf of Peter Woods of OCH Residential Truro Limited.

The plans suggested Old County Hall might be converted into 17 “cluster units” to be offered to students under the management of Falmouth Exeter Plus (FXPlus), the organisation which manages and delivers services at Penryn, Falmouth and Truro campuses.

“This has been a merry-go-round of nothing happening other than changing hands and keeping the professionals who handle such in a living,” Mr Biscoe continued.

“It’s an exceptional building that symbolises the people of Cornwall, who built it. It’s absolutely time Old County Hall was made to be useful again.”

Estate agent Miller Commercial’s marketing material describes the property as “arranged over ground and first floors with the useful inclusion of a small basement”.

The sales blurb continues: “There is a carriage driveway to the front and additional land at the rear which has been used for car parking and has potential for further development.

“The site sits on a generous plot which slopes gently from south to north. Due to the position of the premises, it has commanding views over the local area and to the countryside beyond.”

It goes on to say the building “retains much of its original charm and period features”, including an open stairwell with heavy turned balusters, parquet flooring in parts and vaulted ceilings to corridors.