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October 1884 a deputation from the committee asked the Borough Council to take over the building, assume liabilities of £371 and maintain the library. The council agreed and adapted the second storey to provide offices and a fine council chamber. When they first met in this room on 8 December 1884 Donald Williamson, the borough’s third mayor, congratulated them on having a more suitable meeting place than the restricted quarters they had provided for themselves. Nevertheless, the building appeared half finished and Williamson looked forward to the erection of a ‘handsome’ one for the council’s separate use on the adjacent empty section.

Lack of attention to the town’s open spaces detracted more than did a few poor buildings from the appearance of the business area. Baring Square remained two areas of rough grass and a few stunted trees until the 1890s when the trees were replaced by ornamental shrubs on the east side and a bowling green was laid out on the western portion. Commercially minded people suggested at various times that both parts should be leased for building sections. The railway reserves on both sides of the line through the town were even more of a disfigurement, being occupied by stacks of coal, firewood and timber and even a few ramshackle offices. But it is probable that it was the annoyance caused to the shopkeepers on East Street by coal dust and competition rather than a regard for appearance which actuated the Borough Council in its long struggle with the Railways Department to have the reserves cleared. In 1883 the department refused to forgo the £327 rent for the thirty-three sites. Nevertheless by 1891 the council’s gentle continuous pressure—on local merchants as much as on the department—had proved so effective that the whole of the East Street side was vacant and planted in trees except for a hundred yards between Tancred and Moore streets. The principal occupant of this last area, William Henry Collins the largest timber merchant, argued in fine old-fashioned style that the council had no right to interfere in business arrangements between him and the railway authorities. It is unlikely that this stand aroused much popular resentment. Nevertheless Charles Reid, a much less able man, defeated Collins in the mayoral election of 1897, and the latter accepted an alternative West Street site soon afterwards. Finally for this period, the Borough Council promoted a beautifying society in 1900. Its object was to enlist financial and other support for the improvement of Baring Square and similar open spaces. Collins