NEWPORT council will work with the passport office to help them find a new base, the council’s leader said.

On Monday Identity and Passport Service chief executive Sarah Rapson said the Newport Passport Office would cease to use Olympia House on Upper Dock Street once its lease ends in 2013.

Cllr Matthew Evans, the Conservative leader of Newport council, said the council will work “closely with IPS and help them identify a new location in the city post 2013 when their current lease expires”.

One city chartered surveyor said IPS would have a “couple of options” if IPS decided to stay in Newport city centre.

Haydn Thomas of Hutchings & Thomas Chartered Surveyors, said IPS could move into Chartist Tower, nearby the current office on Upper Dock Street.

He said space in the building is available for around £7-£8 per square foot per year.

“It may give them a chance to reduce the their space and the rent they are paying,” he said.

The passport office could also move into Clarence House – the office block on Clarence Place, over the river from the main city centre – where the rents are around £9-10 per square foot per year.

He said the building has been modernised and refurbished over the last decade, while he said he believed that Chartist House would require some modernisation work to bring it up to Disability Discrimination Act standards.

He said they would be room for the passport office in both buildings.