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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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9th March '08
Torridge doesn’t call many ‘Special’ meetings but on Tuesday 26th February one was held to discuss the future of the Burton Art Gallery and Museum. Readers will recall that there was a plan to provide a ‘Shared Service’ with North Devon District Council where one Trust would run the Queen’s and Landmark Theatres along with the Barnstaple Museum and the Burton. When this came to Torridge on the last occasion members couldn’t reach a decision owing to the absence of any detailed costings. At Tuesday’s meeting various options and actual figures were provided. These options were as follows, 1. Shared service; 2. The same but with the Tourist Information Centre moving to the Burton; 3. Competitive tendering i.e. opening up the running of the Burton to any provider on a competitive basis; 4. Closing the Burton altogether; 5. Do nothing; 6. Streamline the existing set-up and move the TIC into the Burton. I should explain that the TIC has entered the equation as currently Torridge lease the building it uses in Victoria Park and the tenancy is due to finish this month and we can either keep it there, at a much increased rent, or move it into the Burton.
Vicki Braddick led us through the options – and when she got to the ‘Closure’ one there was unbelieving laughter from the public present (and some councillors including me). At the end of this we asked questions. Bearing in mind that the very extensive Reg Lloyd ceramics collection is coming to the Burton I enquired as to how much space will be lost to the Gallery and Museum if the TIC moves in – and was told it would be minimal. Following the questions the committee went into ‘Part 2’ so I cannot tell you what went on. Suffice to say at the end of this we voted to go for Option 6 – so the Burton remains under Torridge’s control, the TIC will be housed in the building and the whole service will address a wide range of potential savings. This needs to be ratified at the ‘Full’ council meeting on March 10th but all the committee members were clear that this was the best way forward – though given the possible/probable amalgamation of Torridge and North Devon councils all could still change in the future.
Torridge recently set its budget for the next financial year – at a meeting where some councillors, especially me, expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of data were being presented with on the evening – an 11 page document and a long and complex series of Powerpoint slides. There was a reason for this late presentation which I will get to later. Various councillors posed interesting questions; Royston Johns, for example, enquired about the Citizen’s Panel which has been established to give the council a steer on what the ratepayers think. This consists of 300 self-chosen people (out of Torridge’s population of 60,000) though how representative it is open to question as councillor Johns pointed out no-one he knew in his home village of Clovelly had ever heard of it. Councillor Roger Tisdale was concerned that future developments seemed to be solely based on the sale of assets and he commented that we were selling all the best bits of Westward Ho! and Northam (he didn’t provide a list) – bits he likened to our ‘family silver’ Councillor Chris Leather wanted more councillors represented on the Asset Management Group as he wanted our ‘sales’ to be more transparent – both to the public and the council. I queried what I consider the gradual transition of Torridge from a service provider to a ‘business’ – and was told by the Chief Executive that ‘community usage’ will always be taken into account, though I am unsure what this means in truth. As to the reason for the lateness of the figures this was blamed on the local Police Authority who have to produce their estimates before us – and left it to the very last moment. Even more interesting is that they are applying for a 7.94% increase in their funding. This, of course, is way over the rate of inflation and they run a very real danger of having it reduced, or ‘capped’, by the government. If this does happen then we will have to rejig our whole budget and post out new Council Tax demands to every household in Torridge – the cost, however, will be borne by the Police!
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