Public Meeting - This is a Rainy Day

Talk of the reserves of money led to discussion of what those reserves are for - surely the Council is saving for a rainy day?
Alistair pointed out that this is a rainy day!

However, Trudy said that half the funds in the Town Council reserves were earmarked for a project. She didn't want to say what it was for to begin with, claiming commercial sensitivity, but after a brief whispered conversation with Rob Golesworthy she said that she could say what it was for. The Town Council have been trying for some time to find suitable land to extend the Cemetery, and time is running out. There are only enough new grave plots left for a couple of years at the current rate of expansion. So the money is to buy a new plot of land.
A question from the back of the hall was - what about the living? Aren't the services for the living more important than the dead?
Trudy replied that the cemetery was a service for the living, because it is where the families of the dead go to find solace. There was applause at this.

Someone else asked if there was enough money to build a new Youth Club, which is badly needed.
There isn't enough money for that.
A chap from the Scouts stood up. He said there were 300 Scouts and Explorers in the Hay area, and they are looking for a base to operate from. They actually have funding for this, but need backing. He was told to talk to HADSCO about it (so some positive networking came out of the meeting).

The County Council are meeting on 21st February to discuss the new budget, before all the relevant groups can react to the proposals - but there is a bit of time after that until the full County Council considers the budget.
One lady asked if the County Council meetings were open to the public. They are, and members of the public can even ask questions at a certain point in the proceedings. Some meetings, like the Cabinet meeting where they discussed Hay, are online as a webcast.
The member of the Cabinet said that the Cabinet had been discussing other, even more extreme measures, such as scrapping the subsidy for every bus service in Powys! He also said that they can't cut the children's and adult services (the County Council has been having severe problems in this area) or education.

The last, and possibly most important question, was - What does the County Council need to hear from Hay to communicate to them what the people of Hay want? What will convince them to change their minds?
There is a serious lack of trust between Hay and the County Council at the moment.
The Cabinet member was asked about this, and he said that as far as he was concerned, his word was his bond. That may well be true, but Hay has discovered to its cost that the Cabinet as a whole is quite happy to go back on agreements.

So the meeting came to a close without anything much resolved. Really the only ideas for raising money for the town were to increase the price of the toilets, and Hay needs rather more than that.

However, there was a petition going round the hall, and a lady said she would take more sheets onto the Thursday market, setting out what the Town Council wants to put before the County Council. I don't have a copy of the wording here (I was busy trying to read it, sign it, and carry on taking notes!) but it does give the Town Council something to go to the County Council showing that a large body of the population support their proposals.
These include fighting to keep the toilets open, fighting to keep the new library open, and trying to gain possession of the old library building to use for the town, in exchange for the money that is already in the reserves.