Charlbury's Charities and Community Facilities

Mon 25 Mar 2013, 15:25

Following on from the Thomas Gifford meeting last Thursday I would like to clarify my thoughts on the matter and provide some answers to questions raised.

I must stress that these comments are purely personal, but I do have a lot of knowledge to back them up as for approx 10 years I have been treasurer of the Corner House and Memorial Hall, and of the Nine Acres with its new sports pavilion.
Lots of things are possible and I do think Charlbury should have this urgent debate for the sake of the coming generations of users. Their needs are as important as our own. Otherwise we will be leaving them with no options.

I feel that housing on the Spendlove site should be avoided if possible as it will leave Charlbury with no other space for future community development. This prompted me to look at alternatives.
I think that we should take this one and only opportunity to fund a development to provide all the community's requirements.
My greatest fear is that the new proposed facility will unintentionally create financial pressures on the CH and MH making either one or both unviable. Charlbury would then be left with reduced facilities.

I have drawn up an outline plan which would give enough space to fulfil the anticipated needs of users. It includes all the facilities proposed by the Gifford trust - a dedicated sports hall plus a new memorial hall, the same size as the current hall, for theatre productions, arts events and social functions etc; the space in between to be a two storey section ?" the ground floor to house the library / shared space with a fully equipped kitchen and bar/coffee bar ?" the second floor (with lift access) to contain two good sized meeting rooms, a large storage facility and an office for a future town clerk. There is also space for about 30 additional parking spaces on the site (the need for this must not be under-estimated). The total footage on the plan is 1022 sq m which at £1300 per sq m would give a total building cost of approx £1.33m.

I consider the CH and MH buildings to be no longer fit for purpose (there is a long list of reasons). They both need a lot of money spending on them to make them practical, comfortable venues. (However, there will still be restricted vehicle access and very limited parking).

I would propose that we should consider selling either, or both, the CH and MH to fund the new build.
The museum should be retained as a self contained entity as its current position is ideal.
I am told, on good authority, that we have assets of at least £1m in the CH and MH (excluding the museum section). The hall site on its own should achieve a minimum of £300K.
I would also like to see our much loved Corner House better used, perhaps as a family dwelling. It is currently so under used. We have bookings for maybe for 2/3 hours a day, six days a week. The rest of the time it remains empty and unheated.
The savings on running costs to the community of our facilities would be great eg 1 kitchen to service ?" not 3, 1 heating system to service ?" not 3, one lot of toilets to clean ?" not 3, reduced service costs due to modern building standards, etc, etc.

The new arts hall should be rededicated as a war memorial as was the Chipping Norton hospital when it moved to new premises in 2011.

In addition there would be a small piece of land available to develop a football social club.

We should, with the Gifford planned monies, be able to adequately fund a complete community centre.