There was a meeting of Abingdon Town Council this evening.
During the first half hour of the meeting everybody flicked through a book of committee papers with very little discussion. Then, in the second half hour, of the short meeting, the public and press were excluded in order for the council to discuss the “commercially sensitive” Guildhall redevelopment. Press Release tomorrow.
Reading the book of committee papers afterwards, I see the 2015 hanging baskets and flower containers have been planted.
There has been a request for an extra dog bin on the Tithe Farm and Ladygrove Estate which the council are keeping under review in case dog poo does become a problem.
100 trees have been ordered for the Spring Gardens Cemetery to replace trees which were diseased and chopped down.
A request for pre-WWI names on the Abingdon War memorial has been denied.
Names for the new roads in the Drayton Road development will be from some of the first fatalities from the WWI Abingdon Roll of Honour. The first one mentioned is King Street.
When the Guildhall closes, the Abingdon Visitor and Information Centre is to move, on 1st September, underneath the County Hall Museum.
Work is to be done on the cemetery chapels, and a tender for that work has been accepted.
The Mayor’s robe dating from 1956 is getting tatty, and a new one will be commissioned.
I did see on the Town Council Information board that there is a consultation on the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme tomorrow at the Guildhall.
P.S On the subject of Dog Poo the Daily Telegraph reports … “An east London council says it is poised to become the first in the UK to use DNA testing to track down owners who fail to clear up their dog’s mess … (read on here)
I suggested dog poo DNA a couple of years ago to the relevant officer at The Veil. The suggestion also included the obvious necessity to chip every beast with a name and address of owners…and, importantly, how this would all fund itself. The idea was, I assume ‘poo-pood’ as I heard no more…but I am glad that my good idea is being brought to fruition by other; modern, forward thinking, proactive councils. Who nose…where others lead, in a decade or so, Abingdon may follow!
Still…the flowers all look lovely at the moment.
Street name suggestion for the Drayton Road Development …
… Nimmo-Smug Close
A road which goes from ‘A’ to ‘Nowhere Fast’
With half the Town centre properties empty, Abingdon Town Council decide to be the first in the country to open a subterranean Tourist Information Centre.
So the guildhall is still set to close in August – has it been decided when the work shall start, or is that still not known?
Good point Dave – the community shop would have been, perhaps, a good idea?
I’m sad to say the Town Council have reached a decision on the Guildhall. What a shame this is, a real opportunity lost to develop something really good for the town.
http://abingdon.gov.uk/system/files/sites/default/files/towncouncil/Town%20Council%20press%20release%20250615.pdf
That is a great shame for Abingdon, it looks like we might end up with a watered down proposal (at best). No risk, no reward.
Yup – pop up cinema a la wantage i’m afraid
At last we’ve finally got some people on the guildhall/cinema committee who have a modicum of common sense and realised the previous incumbents plans were complete folly and totally unachievabl! Little wonder Ian’s party conveniently lost his councillor application forms !!
Rubbish
Reading that report, it looks like a sensible decision for once, and to think, the last newspaper headlines were that various companies were literally fighting over the chance to run it…
Now, if we could just find out what dodgy deal was done over Tilsey Park, and the Old Gaol…
I’m also sad that the more ambitious plans were not able to go ahead but it is the right decision as they would have cost far more than we can afford.
I take Steve’s point about risk and reward, but when we are talking about risking several million pounds of local taxpayers money I have no problem in admitting to taking a cautious approach.
The decision we have made is much more in line with the views of the people who elected me to the Town Council in May.
We will now be looking at a scheme that should make much more of the current building, with accessibility and useability the key aims, leading to much higher usage levels.
So yes, we won’t have a fully fledged cinema, but we should be able to provide a pop-up cinema like the one that is very popular in Wantage and other places.
Dawn – there isn’t yet a complete plan for all the work but it will take some time to empty the bits that need emptying once it is closed, there are then some parts of the work that will be able to go ahead quite quickly and others that will take longer.
One thing we are looking at is whether it will be possible to complete any work in the old part of the building first so that we can then reopen that part for at least some uses while the work goes on in the new part. We won’t know just yet whether this is possible as it will depend on the scope of the work on the new part, but we will do it that way if we can.
OK maybe I am not reading the press release with full understanding but I get no sense of what the Guildhall will be used for in the future.
I note that some refurbishments and internal updating will take place but what then?
How does the Council/Committee propose that more use will be made of the building? This is not a moan or a criticism but a request for information from anyone who gleaned more from the press release than I did.
I thoroughly disagree Neil, you’ve taken a timid decision which will give this town little or nothing, when you had the rare opportunity to do something which would have made a real difference to the town.
What you are saying from a risk reward standpoint is that we as tax payers should continue to stump up £150k a year to keep on subsidising the building and get a fluffed up version of pretty much what we’ve got today which very few people use.
I noted your earlier comments about transparency, i hope, now that the commercial competition is over, that you will be encouraging the council to publish details of the bids you’ve turned down so the townspeople can see the deal that you have rejected on their behalf.
Neil Fawcett – I would very much like to see the analysis that the Town Council has undertaken. It feels to me that this is a huge opportunity missed. Of course there should be due diligence on any council expenditure, but anyone who has lived here can see that the town is going backwards in terms of facilities and the town centre is the poor relation to pretty much every equivalent local town I visit in the South. We are one of the larger medium size towns in the Southern England, with near full employment and reasonably high wages. In fact, I believe we are the largest town in the country without a train station and we seem to be saying we cannot afford a single facility to try and breathe some life back into the arts and the town centre. Anyone who deals with investment decisions (and I do almost every day) knows there are risks and benefits. I look forward to understanding the rationale behind the investment analysis and the extent to which the potential benefits were considered.
Wasn’t WW1 a ‘win’ for democracy? Does The Drayton Rd development tippify the smacking of democracy in the face, as the overwhelming majority of people asked objected to it yet despite this it progressed regardless.
The development is the polar opposite of Democracy.
Naming the streets of that development after WW1 heroes is a little sickening, I think. Another two fingers being waved in the face of the people of Abingdon.
Tithe Farm and Ladygrove Residents’ Association did NOT request an extra dog poo bin. The Association requested an extra rubbish bin – somehow this got converted to a dog poo bin in their paperwork. We’ll write to them and tell them to call off their hounds regarding a doggie bin.
…just to clarrify; the people who got confused about a request for a rubbish bin…and a dog ‘poo bin…are the same people charged with The Guildhall fiasco. Is that right?
Did they reject the cinema…perhaps thinking it was something else!?
Does anyone know whether the councillors who took this decision have the requisite skills to analyse commercial bids? I’m just interested to know their professional backgrounds.
I Do not quite understand why now that the Guildhall is not going into partnership with a cinema chain, there is now any “commercial confidentiality”?
Steve & davidofLuton
The council’s work on the Guildhall project, like The Old Goal project, the Abits project, and, I’m sure, many more ‘initiatives’, have been shrouded in such secrecy that the ordinary ratepayers didn’t know what was happening until a ‘total pup’ was pulled out of the hat.
As far as the Guildhall cinema was concerned all we got was wooly thinking, big budget ambitions and photographs of architectural models (if you’ve ever seen ‘Spinal Tap’ you’ll get the picture).
It seems that the main plank of the plans rejected was to bleed the ratepayers for ever (well, 40 years, I understand) to subsidize a a commercial partner.
I might have this wrong … but does anyone know the whole story?
Somehow the limitless largesse of the Abingdon taxpayers was going to transform a totally mediocre 1960’s folly into a multi-functional leisure destination (a bingo hall perhaps?). I might be wrong, or I might be right, but no-one knows as no-one was told.
All that I suspect is that when projects appear to be stalling it’s likely that it’s going to be a slow-motion car crash.
And that’s what it is.
BTW. I was Planning Director for a major entertainment company. I did all their consumer research and specified the largest/most expensive ongoing piece of industry quantitative research in the UK at the time. I designed the launch of the Cd in the UK (not as I would have wished, but Germans were involved) and, on the line side I ran a fair number of major media-spend consumer projects. I have staff, major project and bottom-line experience. I’ve run my own company and managed acts including one that was Number One in the UK and the US (twice). Believe me, the Guildhall Cinema project was a turkey before it gobbled it’s first grain of corn.
The town has had a major escape.
As he says – he might have got it wrong!
The new plans will leave the subsidy of £150k untouched so we all keep paying.
The previous approach would indeed have required the council to take a loan (probably about £1.5m) but the repayments would have been more than offset by turning the annual subsidy into an annual surplus.
I am unfortunately barred from telling people the exact economics but there was a very very good deal on the table. It carried some risk (which could fairly easily have been mitigated) but what investment doesnt?, but this was one of the clearest cut business cases, even factoring in any risks. i have seen for years (and unlike Newcomer I am still in business, not an ex- anything, and deal with commercial business cases most days).
The one thing I agree with Newcomer (and David who I often agree with) on is that the council should publish details of the deal they have turned down so people can assess what has been done in their name
To be honest…I have no idea what the Guildhall ‘used’ to offer. I have no idea what the Guildhall ‘was going to offer’ and I have even less idea of what it ‘is’ going to offer.
I have no magnificent business mind either, but it strikes me that the most obvious thing to have at least tried, before 5 figure sums were racked up…and even larger ones mooted…would be to have spent some money on getting a proper events manager in of some kind to try and actually make what the Guildhall was into a proper venue.
Speak to almost anyone who ever had or tried to have an event there and you’ll hear worry and depressing stories of just how bad it was run, the obstacles put in your way and just general poor operation.
It won’t matter how many acoustic surveys and architects and new ramps, and wifi they pay out for; if the place isn’t run like a venue ought to be … it’ll suffer the same fate.
But then…whilst still no one knows what the people of Abingdon actually want, I’ll be fascinated to know how they hope to be catered for.
Am very much liking the flowers at St Helen’s wharf this year.
Oh dear, dear, Iain. We’re all an ex-something, you’re an ex-councilor for a start. I’m quite pleased to be an ‘ex’ and enjoy my pension before the tax man gets it and fritters it away on some madcap scheme … let me think, what sort of thing that might be ….
The silver lining of the mistakes we make is that we’ve got something to learn from and change our way of judging things. I’ve learned from mine. Have you learned from yours?
As for the lack of information published by the councils (TC and Vale), details of ALL deals the councils do should be published … the Guildhall, the Old Gaol, etc. The councils should not hide behind ‘commercial confidentiality’, or ‘it’s just too complicated for the electorate to understand’.
Now you’ve got time on your hands and know the ‘inside story’ of the Guildhall project you might like to make a Freedom of Information application on the town’s behalf.
The Truth is out there … somewhere …
Already in hand
Would be nice to see the Guildhall more along the lines of the Cornerstone at Didcot. Cafe, theatre (moveable theatre chairs), 2 mirrored studios, exhibition space ……. a fabulous and thriving arts centre for the evenings as well as daytime.
Think about it ………
Hear hear Houdini – my thoughts exactly.
My dance group recently held an international weekend of workshops, and people came to it from the USA, Japan, Switzerland, France, Germany, Poland and all corners of the UK. Considering we’re based in Abingdon, there was nothing in the town that could house this event – we searched. We used the Cornerstone which was absolutely amazing. Abingdon lost out to all our numerous visitors – dancers, musicians and entourage, accommodation bookings, restaurants, taxis, a show and evenings out. We’re repeating this event next year and probably continuing after that too …….