Council Meeting - Serious Financial Discussions About Toilets, Playing Fields and a Community Centre

I arrived just after seven, and the meeting had already started, so I missed the introduction of the new lady councillor. I should think that they also had a moment's silence in memory of Nigel Birch, who died in Bronllys just before Christmas after a short illness.
This means, of course, that they need to find another councillor to fill his place.

One of the main topics of the evening was the public toilets. The Council have had a quote of £80,000, which the company involved said was needed to refurbish the toilets. They haven't looked at any other quotes yet, though. They thought it might be possible to look at what needed to be done and use local contractors, who would probably be cheaper. The figures were £35,000 for the toilets at the craft centre and £45,000 for the ones at the Clock tower, which have not been refurbished as recently as the craft centre ones. This would be separate from the running costs, for which the County Council is now willing to provide a grant of £6,500 a year for five years if a town wishes to refurbish their toilets.
Crickhowell has recently had their toilets re-furbished in an eco-friendly way, but they may have got a grant to do it because they are on a trunk road. Nigel the town clerk is going to write and ask.

One option would be to close one set of toilets, at the craft centre, since the ones by the Clock tower have asbestos in the building.
Another option would be to charge for the toilets at the craft centre and keep the ones by the Clock tower free.

So how would the Council afford this? "Have we got any assets to sell?" one councillor asked, and the only suggestion that came up was the fishing rights, though no-one was sure who would want to buy them.

There is, of course, £200,000 sitting in a bank account which the Council cannot use - though one suggestion was to draw out £30,000 from that account, and get the County Council to pay in the £6,500 a year to top it back up, so they would have a lump sum to play with. The £200,000 was originally meant to be for a new community centre that never happened.

The Welsh Assembly say that councils must provide toilets - so do they have any grants available to make it possible? Kirsty Williams the AM will be asked about this.

The Town Council will also be meeting with Jeremy Patterson from the County Council soon to discuss what to do.

The County Council will also shortly be devolving the maintenance of the playing fields and pavilion onto the Town Council, at a cost of £8 - 9,000 a year.
There was a suggestion that the Pavilion, which includes the changing rooms for sporting activities, could be combined with a new community centre to save money (though this was one of the suggestions when there were plans to build a new community centre for the millennium, and it was a non-starter because community and sporting facilities needed different rules and the grants were different, so they had to be separate buildings). If the Town Council built their own community centre, rather than waiting for the combined school/community centre/library to be built, they could use the £200,000 on that. The land that they wanted to build the community centre on fifteen years ago is still available, near the doctors' surgery.

In Talgarth, a sports association have taken over the running of the facilities rather than the Town Council.

The councillors decided that an urgent meeting was needed with all the different sports clubs - tennis, bowls, football, rugby, cricket, and anyone else, as well as HADSCO, Hay's sports association. The children's play grounds will also be affected, mainly for the grass cutting through the year.

But we're not getting a reduction in rates while these responsibilities are devolved. In fact, there will be a four and a half per cent increase. However, it was pointed out that, as the County Council are devolving responsibilities down to Town Councils, so Central Government are devolving some of their responsibilities, in the area of social security, for example, to County Councils, so the financial burden on the County Council will not be reduced.
So one suggestion was that the Town Council itself tried to devolve responsibilities - for instance getting the newer housing estates to take responsibility for cutting their own lawns - "or they could have wild flower gardens instead - that would look nice!"

The Council Chambers was the next item to be discussed, and it all relates together, as the County Council wants to sell the building in order to pay for part of the building of the new school, which will also be replacing the community centre and library - but the Town Council don't want to move out if they are only being offered half an office for the Town Clerk to share with the Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths, and the council meetings would have to be booked in the same room that all the community groups, competing for time with the WI and the cubs and so on.
On the other hand, the roof needs serious attention, which will be expensive. The lease has now run out on the building, so technically the Town Council and their tenants in the offices are squatting! However, as sitting tenants it will be hard for the County Council to remove them, especially as it was their fault that the lease ran out without an new arrangement being sorted out. So the Town Council are in quite a strong negotiating position. During this discussion, Rob Golesworthy described the Council Chambers as "a millstone with an income stream", because they do get an income from the tenants of the offices. If the Town Council offered to buy the building themselves, and later sold it, if they made any profit on the deal the County Council would demand the difference, so they don't want to do that - it would be nice, they mused, if the County Council just gave them the building - but then they would have the expense of fixing the roof....