A POLITICAL row has broken out over the £3.6m cost of a plan to move a council's headquarters to another town.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council is proposing to move from Eston, east Middlesbrough, to Redcar.

A three-storey office block would be built and linked to Redcar Central Library and the nearby Coatham Memorial Hall would be refurbished as a civic facility.

It is almost certain the council's coalition cabinet will approve the proposal, which will involve borrowing money.

The move is expected to be phased over three years.

Councillor Glyn Nightingale, cabinet member for corporate resources, said there was a backlog of repairs at Eston Town Hall totalling £850,000.

He said the overall repair bill for all council properties, which he believed was left from the previous Labour administration, ran into millions.

He said the current town hall had outlived its expected use by ten years.

Coun Nightingale said: "The coalition was left with a huge repair bill and we now have no alternative but to deal with this issue. It means we have to use our capital borrowing powers rather than impose a burden on the council tax payers."

Responding to criticisms from Labour that the move would inevitably lead to a rise in council tax, Coun Nightingale said any increase would amount to a few pence.

The new town hall would mean the council would be run from two main centres, Redcar and Guisborough, rather than three, which would make permanent savings on running costs.

However, Councillor George Dunning, leader of the Labour opposition, said tax-payers would end up paying for the move and called for the Eston offices, sited in one of the poorest parts of the borough, not to be closed completely.

Design options for the Redcar town hall will be drawn up in the next 12 months.