13 September 2010
A petition organised by Silver End District Councillors James Abbott and Philip Hughes regarding Silver End village hall is now complete.
It contains 836 names.
The petition calls on Braintree District Council to halt its proposed hall fee increases and to retain the management of Silver End village hall so that local groups can continue to use the hall and so that the hall can be improved for the future.
The petition was launched in mid-July and will be officially presented to the Full Council meeting on September 27th.
In gathering the petition, local district Councillors and helpers knocked on virtually every door in Silver End.
The Cabinet meeting tonight will consider a recommendation from Witham Local Committee that followed from a motion proposed by Cllrs. James Abbott and Philip Hughes in July.
The recommendation will ask the Cabinet to retain the management of the hall, to negotiate reasonable rates with the many groups who use the hall and to work with the local community to improve the hall to make it more attractive to future users.
Cllr. James Abbott will be speaking at the meeting to support the recommendation and to announce the results of the petition. A number of representatives from local groups are also expected to speak at the meeting.
Cllr. James Abbott said
"We would like to sincerely thank the 836 people who signed the district councillors petition. In taking the petition round door to door over the summer, we found just 2 people who supported BDC's existing policy on this issue, so the balance of public opinion could not be more clear.
We hope and trust that Cabinet will now see sense and make the right decisions. The proposed fee increases are nothing short of draconian, and would result in fees increasing for some groups by as much as 150%. We have received letters and telephone calls from many of the groups currently using the hall clearly stating that such increases could force them out of the hall or even to shut down completely. These include 2 well attended pre-school groups, a group representing older people and the local drama group.
As soon as we were aware of the problems the groups faced, we raised it with the administration of BDC. Back in June I raised the issue at Council and was told that the policy had been set previously and would not be changed. But since then we have discovered that the rates set earlier this year did not properly take into account the existing fees many of the groups were being charged. So the percentage increases are much higher than councillors would have thought from reading the papers given to them.
Also since then, as well as the petition we have approached individually a number of Cabinet Councillors to ask them for a change of heart. We have put it to them that not only would the proposed increases be highly damaging to the community in Silver End and beyond, but it makes no financial sense to BDC as the loss of these groups will cut BDC's income from the hall.
Whilst we understand that BDC has a policy of local management of all their halls, this has not proved possible for Silver End - and no wonder. Silver End village hall is the largest in England and as well as the local groups hiring parts of it, there are a number of long term leases on other parts. It is simply too large and complex a building for a local group to manage.
So we call upon the Cabinet tonight to do the obvious, to be sensible and to be fair: retain the management of the hall, negotiate affordable fees with the groups so that they can continue there, and work with the local community and their elected representatives to improve the hall for the future so that we can make it more attractive and get more useage, not less."
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