CITY council leaders have denied wasting taxpayers’ money on a shelved report into the future of the Worcester’s Guildhall, claiming the building now faces a “renaissance” as an events venue.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, the city’s Conservative leader, told councillors he believes the building will thrive in its new use as a venue for events and functions, and insists he does not regret paying consultants £10,000 for advice the council ultimately could not afford to implement.

We revealed last month how the consultants’ report – kept secret for more than a year – concluded at least £250,000 must be spent revamping the Guildhall’s ageing kitchens so it could continue to operate as a café – money the cash-strapped council simply does not have.

Opposition councillors have fiercely criticised the matter, with Labour councillor Jo Hodges asking a full council meeting: “What is there in the recommendations of this £10,000 report that could not have been gleaned from the council’s own officers and environmental health team?”

But Coun Geraghty said commissioning the report last summer had been the right decision at the time, as no one could have foreseen the coming economic storm.

He said: “The world has moved on in the last 18 months. Who would have thought then that Lehman Brothers would soon go bankrupt?

“I do not regret taking sound expert advice before taking decisions – that’s good governance and something we will continue to do.” At a previous cabinet meeting, however, Labour’s Paul Denham pointed out the council was already running out of money before the recession struck.

Back in February 2008, four months before the Guildhall report was commissioned, the council was forced to ditch more than a million of pounds’ worth of planned improvement works around the city – such as the proposed £330,000 pedestrianisation of Cathedral Square – because it did not have the money to implement them.

Coun Denham said: “It’s true we might not have the capital available for the Guildhall now, but we didn’t have an awful lot more when this report was commissioned. It’s always been clear that to improve the kitchen facilities would cost an awful lot of money.”

But Coun Geraghty again insisted “life has moved on” since last summer, and said the decision to now offer the building as an events venue was a positive one.

He said: “I think this is a renaissance for the Guildhall.

“There will for the first time be a choice of caterers for functions, and having a list of quality caterers to choose from might actually lead to more people using the Guildhall.”