The Town Council decided to employ the municipal architect, Percy Billington, for the new building, rejecting the Education Committee's earlier enquiries into the possibility of bringing in outside architects sympathetic to the Regency style. Considerable local anger had been expressed about the possibility of demolishing a Grade II-listed terrace of Regency houses, against the advice of the Royal Fine Art Commission. Michael Viney, however, was more positive: "Decisively modern and pseudo anything, the building nonetheless makes gradual easy transition from the Regency bow-fronts adjacent in Grand Parade to the sharper, cleaner, more functional lines of 1958."