Macclesfield will become a council hub again when hundreds of workers are transferred to man a £500,000 computer centre.

Up to 200 extra staff could arrive at Macclesfield Town Hall after the data centre is installed in April.

It will house a Cheshire East Council computer hub which will rapidly speed up how quickly staff can work by storing large back up servers and quantities of online data.

The centre could also become a future money spinner if outside agencies sign up to use the facilities.

CEC is currently in discussion with among others, Cheshire Police, Cheshire Fire Authority and the NHS, to use the centre.

CEC’s finance chief, Councillor Frank Keegan, said: "This data centre could potentially create 150 to 200 jobs in Macclesfield because the resilience of our broadband will be dramatically enhanced.

"The data centre at the moment where we store all our computers is Chester and we are building one in Macclesfield to allow our staff to have quicker response times.

"At the moment everyone needs telephone links to Chester."

He said the centre, which is due to be fully installed in April, would be manned by 20 staff in the near future while 180 more staff could eventually be transferred to the town hall.

"Because Macclesfield has such a terrific electrical and telephone capability, it will allow us to move people there to work much more efficiently.

"This will eventually be part of a group of North West data centres which other local authorities will be able to use.

"It is putting a peg in the ground to make Macclesfield the hub of this new way of working.

"The person who benefits most is the taxpayer – this will stabilise the costs of the public sector."

Coun Keegan said the facility will be ‘terrifically secure’ with information encrypted, and back-up files kept elsewhere.

Coun Ainsley Arnold, leader of opposition Lib Dem group, welcomed the centre.

He said: "I welcome the town hall being more populated because at the moment it looks a bit forlorn and I do think we need to start to take control of our own data from Cheshire West."

In the days of Macclesfield Borough Council, the town hall was the hub for council meetings and workers. With the formation of Cheshire East Council (CEC), Sandbach and Chester became the new focal points for government.