Big buildings...and small minds?

Just how big is Nottingham’s grand old Guildhall? Good question. Just don’t bother asking the people who occupy it for an answer.
Its occupant is Nottingham City Council, and the council is currently considering moving out of this majestic but hideously inefficient building into a modern corporate environment.
Let’s hope it grows some modern, corporate working practices when it gets there.
The signs are that it may need to. When Evening Post Business Editor Richard Tresidder made a routine request for information about the size of the building he was met with this magnificently pettifogging response:

‘This is one aspect of potential negotiations on this issue that it would not be beneficial for either the council or council tax payer to discuss in detail at the present moment in time.’

Eh?
This ripe response opens up all sorts of intriguing possibilities. If the council doesn’t want to discuss the size of the building does that mean it knows something we don’t? Perhaps this isn’t The Guildhall at all – perhaps it’s Doctor Who’s Tardis!
And what will happen if someone rings up and wants to buy it?
Buyer: “I’d like to turn The Guildhall into a five-star hotel. Could you tell me how many rooms it’s got?”
Council: “Confidential, I’m afraid. Do you want to have a guess and we’ll tell you if you’re warm?”
This is, of course, a ludicrous scenario. But so, some may conclude, is the council’s response.
Especially as the information that it is apparently being so secretive about is infact already available on a public website.
Type in the postcode of The Guildhall (NG1 4BT, since you were asking) on the website of the Valuation Office Agency (www.voa.gov.uk, click on business rates, click on 2000 rating list, put the postcode into general searches, tick the right-hand box on the bottom entry, then click ‘view details’, then click on the blue ‘Valuation’ box in the top entry of the next page) and you’ll discover that this late Victorian building extends to 10,700 square metres (107,288 sq ft in old money)
The size of a building is not a state secret. It is basic information routinely discussed when a commercial property is on the market.
The only difference with The Guildhall is this: it is a publicly-owned commercial property.
In which case the people who the community employ to look after it might care to be a little more transparent when inquiries are made on the community’s behalf.