You’ve now had time to get over Christmas and the New Year and really looking forward to the next holidays, so I will bring you back to down to earth with news of what your local Town Council has been getting up to over the past few months.
You will have read in the local press that the Chairman of Finance & Policy, Terry Lundberg, had resigned last November less than two weeks before an important meeting of that committee which was to discuss the Towns budget for the year beginning April 1997. Needless to say, prior to this announcement, nothing had really been done to gather the threads together to produce data for this important event. The day before the announcement, I had a feeling that something should have been happening to get the budget sorted and, although I am not a member of that committee, I suggested I would put together some data ‘just in case’. In the event, in consultation with the Town Clerk, the independent members of the Council, I managed to have a draft budget ready for the committee. This involved a lot of work and I found myself making policy decisions for the Council although I did my best to incorporate decisions made by the various committees over the year. As is normal, the budget had to be ratified by the full council at its’ December meeting, so I used this time to check the assumptions I had made, and, in the light of the Finance & Policy committee not discussing the proposal to allocate £10,000 for grant aid to historic buildings, this was dropped from the final budget as agreed by the full council. One of the main changes I made this year was to identify exactly how the money raised was intended to be spent, in contrast to the previous one where everyone wanted to know what the additional monies raised was to be spent on.
The election for the replacement for Terry Lundberg will be held in early February and, in line with this particular councils policy, the full council in December filled the two gaps with existing council members. Once again, as with the last by-election, no space has been left for the new member to take a full and active part in your council until the first Monday in March when the full council meets. You will be interested to know that Cllr. Duvall is now Chairman of Finance & Policy as well as Chairman of Environment and Vice-chairman of Planning. The Chairman of Planning, Cllr. Foster is also Vice-chairman of Finance & Policy, so between them, they should be able to deal with just about anything to do with the Town Council apart from Social/Community matters about which Cllr. Sharpe is the man to ask. I must admit Transport & Highways is still under the Chairmanship of Cllr. Johnston, but most of those matters seem to get picked up by either Planning or Environment.
The ‘Friends of the REX’ have taken to heart the suggestion of several prominent Town Council members that the Borough dispose of the Civic Centre, Gable House/Hall and all the other buildings, erect ‘low cost’ housing and use the money left over (what money?) to buy the REX. The idea, it appears, is that the friends will raise the money to refurbish the building, the Town & Borough councils will then rent space to pay for the continuing losses. I wonder how they would feel if you or I suggested that the ‘friends’ sold their own property to buy the REX and then rent one of the proposed (or existing) flats to live in? I had an opportunity to have a look round the building with the owners a couple of months ago, and I agree, given enough money, it could be put back as it was, then continue to lose money (as it did). What I cannot agree with is the assumption that the Town or Borough should just pick up the bill, whatever the cost. My colleague, Cllr. John Brooks, made the point that if a viable use for the building was proposed, then, we are sure that both councils would play their part. So far, this has not happened. The Town Councils roll in this matter should be resolved when I hope to propose the rescinding of the councils idea to form a limited company to ‘kick start’ (Mr Lundbergs words, not mine) the REX ideas. The directors of this company were/are Mr Lundberg and Cllr. Peter Such. Terry and Peter admitted that the object had been achieved and the company need not be formed, so we should have saved a few more bob.
