December Council Meeting - Transfer of Assets

Members of the Council have been meeting with people from the County Council to sort out the details of taking over various "assets" and running them for the town. These are things that have been the responsibility of the County Council, but which they are now off-loading to save money. Most important among these are the toilets and the playing fields.
Over the course of several meetings, the County Council have apparently become much more reasonable. One of the newer councillors said that she'd been to one meeting, and then missed a couple, and when she attended the next, it was as if the people from the County Council were speaking a different language! All the local councils have been applying pressure for the best deal they can get, and the County Council seem to have realised that they have to work with the local councils if they want their plans to succeed.
Llandrindod Wells local council have been talking to contractors, according to the Mayor of Builth (so the various small councils have been talking to each other) to get quotes for cleaning contracts and so on. It might be possible for a group of small councils to band together to get a better deal (though if they have to band together to get something done - isn't that what the County Council is for?)
So Hay's councillors are moving ahead with a business plan for the toilets, even though the County Council haven't been able to supply them with accurate figures for the running costs. The trouble is, the County Council's bill is for a group of toilets, and it's almost impossible to break it down to individual toilet blocks. They will also be looking at the grass cutting costs for the playing fields.
However, one point that came up was - how will the County Council know if Hay is making a saving on the costs that they have been paying, if they don't know accurately how much those costs are?
And if Hay is running the toilets and playing fields, will Hay own the toilets and playing fields? Some of them were originally owned by Hay anyway, and given over to the County Council in the 1970s (it seemed like a good idea at the time). Talgarth Council have taken back their playing fields.
It's always best to go to the people who actually do the work to find out what's really happening, so Alan Powell is going to have a word with Mac, who services the toilets (amongst other things) at the moment. (Mac was the local celebrity who turned on the Christmas Lights last year!)

And on the subject of Christmas lights, there has been a gradual changeover from the old incandescent bulbs to new LED lights (which are much cheaper to run) over the last few years. The display costs about £4,000, shared between the Council and the Chamber of Commerce, and there needs to be a discussion between the two about how much each side will pay next year.
The street lights on Castle Street were dark for a few nights before the lights were switched on this year. I thought that they might have been switched off, to make the Christmas lights look more impressive when they came on - but it seems that they're actually broken, and the County Council haven't sent anyone to mend them yet, despite several complaints. The light by the school is still broken, too, and the school and the youth club have been asking for that to be fixed for months.
One of the new councillors asked about the lights that hadn't been put up this year, and at the end of the meeting I left them waiting for Nigel the Town Clerk to get the key so they could go down to the cellar to look.