A NEW county hall is set to be built in Monmouthshire to house the authority's 450 staff, council chiefs decided.

Staff have to leave the existing 30-year-old county hall in Cwmbran, currently shared with Torfaen county council, by March 2012 because the building has concrete cancer, with rain penetrating the cladding and rusting steel supports. It would cost £30 million to repair.

Monmouthshire aims to be out of the building by the end of 2010, although Torfaen council says it is unlikely to hit that target.

The county hall land has been identified in Torfaen's local development plan as a strategic housing site with the potential for 100 homes.

Torfaen council says it plans to rehouse its 600 staff by using existing buildings elsewhere in the county. But Monmouthshire's decision will mean that council will have a headquarters in its area, rather than in Torfaen, for the first time since the authority was created 12 years ago.

In September 2004, Monmouthshire councillors agreed to build a scaled-down new headquarters housing just 60 staff, and use existing offices more.

The cost of the new headquarters has not yet been decided, but it is likely to be around £20 million. A new site has not yet been earmarked.

Raglan or Usk were favoured in 2004, and they are still likely to feature in the new search, along with other commercial sites in the county including a plot of land next to Mitel, Portskewett, and the Coopers' site in Llanfoist.

The decision to build a new headquarters was made at an extraordinary meeting of Monmouthshire County Council.

In 2004 the cost was estimated at £7.5 million which would have been met entirely from Monmouthshire's share of the proceeds of the sale of the land at county hall.

Because land prices have dropped, Monmouthshire will now only get around £4 million as its share when the county hall site is sold.

The council will also introduce different working practices to reduce the need for office space and save money - including giving staff available work spaces instead of designated desk spaces and some working from home.

Chief executive Colin Berg said: "Any desk in any organisation is empty 50 per cent of the day and each desk costs this authority £7,000."

He said the authority is halfway through consulting with staff and this would be completed by Christmas.

Cllr Giles Howard welcomed the move.

He said: "We are planning something quite modest and the savings made on running this crumbling dump (County Hall) will make up for the outlay."

But Cllr Phyl Hobson said the council had agreed in September 2004 to have a civic presence in Monmouthshire with accommodation for 60 staff plus meeting facilities.

He added: "We've had costings for that project all the way through, but we have no costings today and no ball park figure."