Council Meeting - Hay will be Running Things for itself

There's been a meeting between councillors and the different sports clubs that use the Pavilion on Brecon Road. Shortly, the County Council will be giving the running of the Pavilion over to the clubs that use it, or the Town Council, or whoever is willing to step up and take over - but the impression that the councillors got at the meeting was that members of the clubs don't seem to recognise the seriousness of the situation. Some of them were asking if they couldn't just contribute for half the year, if their club only met in the summer, for instance (though the Pavilion and the sports fields are there year round, and need to be maintained year round).
There are also statutory requirements that need to be met, such as a chap coming out from the County Council to check on the asbestos in the building, and to turn all the taps and showers on once a week to prevent health problems (I think this is to do with Legionnaire's Disease). The fire extinguishers need to be checked annually too.
What they need is a definitive list of the responsibilities for the building, because every time they go back to the County Council, something new seems to be added. They also need a definitive cost for the running of the Pavilion.
There is an option for the Town Council to take over the running of the Pavilion, but in that case certain grants would not be available.
If no-one is willing to take on the running, the land would be sold.
There was some annoyance earlier in the meeting, when they were discussing the annual audit of the Town Council's accounts and how it has to be changed to comply with new rules. The Town Council has to be totally transparent and account for every penny (which is good) but it's almost impossible to get a straight answer on finances out of the County Council, which should be that much more responsible about transparancy and accounting for every penny because it's handling so much more money than the Town Councils. This has been the case with the toilets as well as the Sports Pavilion.

Meanwhile, the situation with the Council Chambers seems to be that the building will be transferred back to the ownership of the Town Council, but if they ever want to sell it in future, the profit will go back to the County Council (though looking at the state of the records going back to the 1970s and the disputes about who owned what, all they have to do is wait long enough and everyone will forget who gets the profits and the records will be lost or hidden in some obscure corner of the Archives anyway).
At any rate, retaining the present building will be better than the councillors camping out in a classroom of the new school to have their meetings - if the school ever gets built. The present estimate is 2017, and a lady contacted Gareth Ratcliffe's Facebook page to tell him how angry she was that Llanigon School had been closed down without the new Hay School in place to take the children.
It seems, too, that there are doubts about whether the Library will be transferred into the new school building, too. For the next two years, there are contingency plans being discussed. The County Council want to cut Hay Library's hours by 20%. Gareth was unable to go into detail, but it seems there is a group that might be willing to help to keep the Library open for the existing timetable, but they also want to look at the hours and see if they can change the opening to the times when most people want to use the Library. This would be done with the help of Jayne the Librarian. There was some worry about the main Library in Brecon, but that wasn't discussed as it's outside the remit of Hay Council.