Agenda item

Public participation

To receive any questions or statements from members of the public that have registered to speak. 

Minutes:

 

Four members of the public had registered to ask a question.

 

A.   Councillor James Goodman, Wantage Town Councillor and Chairman of the Wantage & District Chamber of Commerce, asked the following question

"Following the Liberal Democrat administration’s decision to scrap plans for a new leisure centre covering Wantage, Grove and surrounding villages, please would they explain where the S106 funding, which was previously allocated to this project, has now been re-allocated, or spent?"

Councillor Helen Pighills, Cabinet member for healthy communities, provided the following response:

 

“The previous administration, at a Cabinet meeting on 7 December 2018, paused a number of capital projects, including the proposed Wessex Leisure Centre, on the basis that there was no certainty that funding for the scheme would ever be available.

 

They did not then allocate funding for the project in their February 2019 budget.

 

It is clear that the amount of Section 106 developer contributions that are available to the council to spend on leisure fall well below the amount that would be needed to fund the proposed centre, so the new administration made the sensible decision to stop any further work on the project.

 

Of the original £18.8 million project, £5.9 million of funding was identified to be raised from S106 contributions. To date only £1.7 million of this has been received and the balance will become due as further housing completions are delivered by the developers.  None of this S106 funding has yet been accessed or spent. 

 

All available S106 funding can be viewed on the council website. 

 

Contributions that were not specifically for the project are available for use on other schemes and will form part of future budget decisions by the Council.

 

Officers are working with the council’s legal team on the contributions that specifically mention the Wessex Leisure Centre to ensure that these funds can be used for other leisure purposes within the communities that were intended to benefit.

 

Officers are progressing the development of a new Active Communities Strategy which will identify ways that S106 funding can be used for leisure activities across all communities of the Vale”.

 

 

B.   Mr Andrew Coker, Church Warden of the parish of Abingdon, asked the following question

 

“Why would you think of selling Old Abbey House when as you have said on many occasions it could play such an important community role?”

 

Councillor Emily Smith, Leader of the council, provided the following response

 

“Thank you for your question and for your comments about the importance of Old Abbey House. Both in terms of its position at the centre of the town and the affection local people have for the building. It is incredibly sad to walk past the building all boarded up, and with maintenance costs mounting up as a result of it being empty for far too long, I am anxious to see it back in use.

 

Speaking personally, I would be delighted if a viable community use could be found. The council continues to encourage groups and individuals to submit proposals for business cases with their ideas. However, in the current financial climate we also need to consider the cost implications for maintaining this building as we try to manage ongoing budgetary pressures in a responsible way.

 

Existing budget pressures have been exacerbated by unexpected costs in relation to the council’s Covid-19 response. There are ongoing financial implications that we need to manage carefully not just for Old Abbey House, but also for all our properties across the district.

 

Old Abbey House requires considerable ongoing expenditure to maintain and to improve on its current condition. The council does not have the required funds available to continue to manage the building. To bring the building back into use will require considerable expenditure and hence the need to undertake the market testing exercise.

 

As part of the market testing exercise community groups have been encouraged to come forward with their proposals for the building and a number of conversations are ongoing.

 

A report will be presented to Cabinet in December setting out the options based on the interest received during this exercise.  Therefore, I cannot confirm today whether we will progress a sale or not until Cabinet have considered in detail all the viable options available”.

 

C.        Mrs Hester Hand, Chair of Friends of Abingdon Civic Society, asked the following question

 

“Please can the Council explain the process for deciding on the future of Old Abbey House, in particular:

 

a) how options other than sale on the open market are being or will be considered and

 

b) the nature and timing of the public consultation which we have been assured will take place before any decision is taken?”.

 

Councillor Emily Smith, Leader of the council, responded as follows:

                

“Since the marketing testing exercise began in June, the council has encouraged all interested parties, including community groups to come forward with their ideas for Old Abbey House.  A bid letter will be sent to all interested parties shortly inviting final offers.  These will remain sealed until opened simultaneous and evaluated against a range of agreed criteria (these criteria will be set out with the bid letter). A report will be brought forward to Cabinet on 4 December setting out the bids and evaluation for Cabinet’s consideration.

 

Public consultation has been ongoing since the market testing exercise began in June.  A range of communications have been issued by the council inviting interested community groups, charities, and private sector organisations to come forward with ideas for the building. I encourage interested parties to contact the council or VSL with formal proposals while this process is ongoing and ask that council members pass on any information or comments they receive from people in their wards to me or Councillor Crawford, Cabinet member for Finance and Community Assets. The report detailing the bids and proposals is due to be considered by Cabinet on 4 December”.

 

D.   Alice Badcock asked the following question

“Could the administration explain what focus it has currently on Abingdon, which seems to be getting left behind compared to the rest of the Vale”?

 

Councillor Emily Smith, Leader of the council, responded to the individual

elements of the question, set out in bold, as follows:

1.    After you declared the failure of the previous administration to rejuvenate the Upper Reaches, almost 18 months into the new administration it still sits derelict and unused. You appear to have taken “a low priority” approach to remedy this situation that you caused the last time you ran the administration of this Council

“As the previous administration was aware, this is a complicated site and due to changing market conditions the existing lease holder was not able to proceed with their original plans. It was unfortunate that in a newspaper article just before the 2019 elections it was announced that a deal had been reached with a hotel company to take over the Upper Reaches, raising the community’s expectations. After the election I learnt this was not that case that no such deal had been reached.

Since then, the council has been actively working with the lessees of the site and we hope they will have a plan for the site that can be shared over the forthcoming months”. 

2.    Old Abbey House has been left to fall down by neglect, what is your plan to clear the site? What do you propose for the site?

“Old Abbey House has indeed been neglected since 2015 when the council ceased to use it as an office. An announcement was made by the previous administration in 2017 that Old Abbey House would be developed into social housing. Unfortunately, that announcement was made before any feasibility study was carried out, and the proposal did not progress.

The new administration is keen to see Old Abbey House brought back into use as soon as possible.  Given the ongoing financial pressures the council is currently undertaking a market testing exercise in respect of Old Abbey House and is seeking bids and proposals for all possible viable uses. There are no plans to clear the site.

A report will be considered by Cabinet on 4 December 2020”.

3.Illegal parking in Abingdon – when do you propose to introduce civil enforcement something you promoted when you were in opposition?

“Parking continues to be a huge problem in towns and villages across the Vale. Civil Parking Enforcement is indeed something I, and the Vale Liberal Democrat group, have championed for many years and I am pleased to report this is now moving forward at pace. Officers have been working in partnership with other councils across Oxfordshire to progress this project. Subject to Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council, South Oxfordshire District Council and the Vale Cabinet approving the proposal at respective Cabinet meetings between 13 October and 4 December an application to the Department for Transport will be made by early 2021. Assuming the Department of Transport progress the application within normal timescales, we are aiming for implementation between September and November 2021”.

4.The Abbey Meadows splash play area has been rendered unusable by children due to fouling by Canada Geese. What action are you going to take to restore this facility to the children of Abingdon and the Vale?

During the summer months the park area experiences large gatherings of birds. Notices have been put in place to discourage members of the public feeding the birds.

When open, GLL, the operators of the splash play area, jet wash and clean the splashpad before use every day, clear it throughout the day and wash it at the end of the day. They use chemicals on this splashpad (algaecide) to ensure the general plant debris that grows can be cleared and also to manage the bird faeces. (This goes directly into the drain and not into the river source). 

A planned project to build a fence across the front section by the river in order to provide customer safety preventing direct to the river and to try to prevent birds from landing has been delayed due to Covid and limited staff resources due to more urgent priorities, but is hoped to be delivered in time for the next season when the splash pad is open again”.

 

 

 

 

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