A period of up to 15 minutes is allowed for members of the public to make a comment, ask questions or present petitions. Each member of the public has up to 3 minutes to do this. A councillor may also present a petition on behalf of a member of the public.
Minutes:
The Chairman announced that three questions had been received from members of the public.
As all of the questions related to the same general issue of the proposed new Leisure Centre, the responsible Portfolio Holder, Councillor P. J. Whittaker would respond to the questions all together rather than on an individual basis.
Question from Mr C. Barnett
“At the meeting of the Full Council on February 24th we were informed that the Sports Hall negotiations with BAM would be finalised in 4 to 6 weeks, but there's still no news.
These negotiations have been talked about since July 2014, almost 2 years ago, I'm beginning to think that the deal has actually failed and those in charge of it are keeping the truth from us.
I'd like to know who is responsible for carrying out these negotiations, how many times have they met with BAM, how much it has cost in council time and expenses and when will we have an answer?”
Question from Ms D. Fullerton
“I have been playing badminton in halls all over Worcestershire for the last 15 years, and the sports hall at The Dolphin Centre is one of the better ones I play in. Could the council consider retaining the sports hall when the rest of the centre is demolished, particularly as the money is not available to replace it?.”
Ms Fullerton also referred to the general difficulty of being able to find available time slots within sports halls due to clubs making “block bookings”.
Question from Ms L. Humphries
“So far there has been £700,000 of extra costs concerning the construction of the new leisure centre due to "unexpected challenges". If the council votes to continue with this project can you guarantee the costs won't increase any further? And if you can't guarantee this, how are you going to afford any additional costs?”
Councillor Whittaker confirmed that talks with North Bromsgrove High School were still on going but progress had been made in that terms had been agreed and the talks were now focussing on access arrangements for the Hall. Reference was made to options which had been explored and to the financial pressures under which the Council was operating.
Progress was being sought as quickly as possible to achieve the best outcomes for the public. The Head of Leisure and Cultural Services was leading the negotiations with BAM and there had been 13 meetings and over 20 hours of discussion to date. The best possible outcome would continue to be pursued and information would be shared as soon as it was available.
In response to the possibility of retaining the existing sports hall in situ, Councillor Whittaker confirmed that this had been considered as an option. On investigation however it had become clear that this was not viable due to a number of factors including :
· the difficulty of retaining the sports hall whilst demolishing the remainder of the building;
· the extensive work which would subsequently be required to ensure the sports hall was safe and usable; and
· the loss of the sale value of the land which would result from the exercise.
In relation to the final question, Councillor Whittaker highlighted that the financial issues would be discussed further later in the meeting. It was unrealistic however to give a guarantee that there would be no additional costs arising during the project and a contingency sum was included within the budget to meet this possibility.