Wednesday 30 August 2017

Nocton Village Hall - meeting

Disappointing turnout


Nocton Village Hall
I refer to my blog dated 23rd August 2017, displaying the Agenda items for the meeting held yesterday at 6.30pm.

Brief summary

There were five Councillors with two advisors sitting on the Sub-Committee... and only seven residents in attendance.

The Development Design Lead (Stuart Denniss) from Simons Group failed to show... due to unforeseen circumstances. As a result, there was minimal progress made with considering the implications of withdrawing the planning application on the project.

These are my informal notes from the meeting.

In attendance
Parish Councillors: Ian Goldsworthy, Jane Kania, Mike Kaye, Liz Murray and Mary-Ann Williams
Advisors: Stuart Vicary, Sheila Wyatt
Other residents x 7


Agenda item 1 - Apologies
Councillor Graham Jones

Agenda item 2 - Declarations of interest
None


Agenda item 3 - Minutes
Previous Minutes were signed and agreed, following a minor amendment


Agenda item 4 - Rebuilding Project - Current Position
There was minimal progress with discussing the withdrawal of the planning application, due to the non-attendance of the Simons Group representative. However, concern was expressed that initial cost estimates might now change, due to possible alterations of the design build and resulting resubmission of the planning application.


Due to disappointing progress with the project, the Sub-Committee agreed to write and escalate the issue to Senior Management within the Simons Group.

The matter of setting up a Charitable Trust was then discussed.

It is important to realise that many funding opportunities for projects, such as rebuilding a Village Hall, are now only available to those operating under a Charitable Trust. It is therefore necessary to change how the Village Hall operates, if we want to fully maximise opportunities to access supplementary funding streams. Gone are the days of large grants being easily accessible for public projects.

An 'advertisement' will be published shortly in The Nocton News (possibly in the October Edition), asking for volunteers to come forward to 'manage' the Village Hall under a Trust Agreement. A meeting will be held for any volunteers, so that they can learn what is involved e.g. how such a Trust functions; to discover what their obligations are etc. 

The main funding for the redevelopment of the Village Hall will still be from a Public Works Loan. The formal application and paperwork has already been completed, except for fine tuning. Unfortunately, this now cannot be progressed until the implications of the withdrawal of the planning application are realised.

As a result of the non-attendance of the Simons Group representative, the meeting was brought to an early close. The next meeting date will be advised once more information has been established.

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