Councillors back demolition of historic Portsmouth records office
Historic Portsmouth building could be demolished despite calls for conservation and community use.
Plans to replace Portsmouth’s former Records Office with sheltered housing have been backed by councillors, despite concerns over the loss of a historic building.
Portsmouth City Council’s cabinet approved the plans in principle, subject to planning permission, to demolish the historic Ministry of Defence utility store.
The £15.45m scheme would include 44 flats, four of which would be wheelchair-accessible, alongside communal gardens, a residents’ lounge and dining facilities.
Alternative uses, including a museum, arts space and housing conversion, were considered but dismissed on grounds including financial viability. Actor Stephen Fry previously urged the council to turn the building into a Sherlock Holmes Museum.
Vacant since 2011, the building has suffered significant subsidence, damp and mould. Its location on the former city moat, combined with ground conditions consisting of clay, silt and sand, has contributed to structural instability.
Arguing for its conservation, former councillor Alicia Denny said the “heritage and environmental qualities of that site are such that they should not just be immediately dismissed”.
She urged members to reconsider the plans and preserve the building for community use.
Terry Henderson, another former councillor, also campaigned to preserve the building, which stood “proud and defiant” during bombing raids in the Second World War.
Cllr Hugh Mason, defending the proposal, said: “It can hardly be said to be a beautiful building, it is a utilitarian building and was good for what it was originally designed for but that is in the past”.
He added that the scheme could allow “people who are in the last years of their lives to live in well constructed small flats overlooking the small gardens of the museum.”
Council leader Cllr Steve Pitt said the authority had been sitting on the decision for “seven or eight years because everyone’s worried about demolishing that building”, which he said should have been levelled “a decade ago”.
“It is long past any viable economic improvement or viable use,” he said.
He added that the supported housing project would unlock homes for families on the waiting list who “desperately need to be rehoused”.
The building was constructed around 1898 as part of Victoria Barracks. It served as a regimental institute before becoming the city’s Records Office in the mid-1970s.
The building stored important historical documents which, in 2011, were moved to Portsmouth Central Library, where they became part of the Portsmouth History Centre.
Council officers will progress the housing scheme, with procurement to follow if planning permission has been granted.