The Saga of Hadleigh Hall

A recent (Oct 2011) Castle Point Council consultation exercise relating to the review of polling stations for 2012, proposes to use the WRVS Hall in the John Burrows Recreation ground rather the main Hadleigh Hall in the same grounds.

However, a recent report in the Echo said that there was a possibility that the WRVS hall would have to close because it was too expensive to run

The polling station review proposals said, with regard to the main Hadleigh Hall:- "The Hall has now been returned to the Council's control but will not be in a suitable condition for use at the elections in May 2012."

What is going on? One hall likely to close, the other not fit for purpose.

In 2004, the Council declared that it would cost more than £2, 000,000 over a ten year period, to maintain all of the Council halls in a condition to meet reasonable standards and to cater for health and safety requirements. This amount, they said was unsustainable. So the Tory Council embarked on course of disposing its halls.

Hadleigh Hall was the first to go to a Leisure Company, The cost to rectify and to maintain this hall was said to be more than £500,000 over the same ten years.

Now that the Council has taken back the Hall into public ownership, presumably because its lessee  left it in a dilapidated state, it would be nice to know if the Council are going to publish how much of that £500,000 worth of maintenance was carried out by their lessee and how much of this tab the Council will be picking up.

It would be nice to know whether there was proper scrutiny of the lessee's original business plan for the hall and indeed did the Council receive payment for the lease? 

 Latest:- £10,200 has been allocated to carry out essential  repairs

Cabinet Oct 17th 2011 (see page 4 Para 7.3)

Click underlined phrasesfor references