Officials: IT’s the one for us

COUNCIL officials say it will be cheaper, and staff will be happier, if IT training is provided in a temporary building in March rather than in modern offices at Exchange Tower, Wisbech.

"If staff had to travel to Wisbech to use an IT training facility, at least one hour of each employee's time would be lost in travelling time," the council's temporary head of IT, Geoff Kent, said this week.

"There could be transport issues and there would also be a cost in additional car mileage costs.

"The present site at Fenland Hall is conveniently located for the majority of the council's staff."

Mr Kent's comments came as the council said it wanted to build homes within the grounds of Fenland Hall and relocate temporary offices to the north east corner of the site.

Under the proposals, described as "part of a masterplan to rationalise development", the two-storey building known as The Terrapin will be demolished.

Part of the site will be used for housing, and for relocating a single-storey temporary building.

Officials say the main use of the building will be for IT training "its most frequent use being training new customer services staff".

Although officials expect rooms to become available inside Fenland Hall when some staff move out because of the transfer of the council's housing stock to Roddons, this will not be for some time.

The council also believes the proposals will stop families with young children using Fenland Hall grounds as a short cut to school.

"The proposed development will eliminate an undesirable pedestrian rat-run," says the report.

Mr Kent said no rooms at Fenland Hall were suitable for IT training because if up to 12 computers were placed in the room "this would make normal meetings less pleasant".

The same would be true, he said, if a training/meeting room at Exchange Tower were used.