Nearly £90,000 to prepare Herefordshire's new registry office and wedding venue
Herefordshire Council are already taking books for registry weddings at the new site
Nearly £90,000 is being spent readying a Herefordshire building to become the new venue for registry weddings in the county.
An eight-week contract between Herefordshire Council and local firm SC Joseph, worth £89,613 including VAT for “internal refurbishment works” to Gardner Hall in Hereford’s Venns Lane was due to end on March 13.
The council’s decision to award was made on January 21 but only published on March 5.
It earlier announced it would move its Register Office to the building, previously part of the Royal National College for the Blind, in April.
The council is already taking bookings for registry weddings at the building’s Woollard Room, which can accommodate up to 70 guests, where prices start at £565 including the attendance of registrars.
It will also host basic or “statutory” wedding ceremonies at 9.30am on Mondays to Thursdays, at which only the couple, registrars and two witnesses are present.
Registry Office functions in the county were previously carried out in Town Hall in St Owen Street, then latterly for a year and a half at 8 St Owen Street next door.
Meanwhile the Town Hall has been hosting the city’s main library ahead of the multi-million-pound new library and learning centre being created in Shire Hall across St Peter’s Square.
Births, deaths, stillbirths and notices of marriage or civil partnership will now also be recorded at the Venns Lane office, for which appointments can be made online.
Gardner Hall will also be the venue for the county coroner’s inquests from next month. But it appears citizenship ceremonies will still be held at the Town Hall.
Herefordshire previously consisted of six registration districts of Bromyard, Hereford, Kington, Ledbury, Leominster and Ross-on-Wye, until these were amalgamated in 2008.