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Govanhill Baths Community Trust |
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Here is our latest letter to Steve Inch (Director
of Development and Regeneration Services) pointing out our continued concerns
about the conditions laid on the Trust in the context of Community Planning
Partnerships and calling for a meeting with his officials. We await a reply. October
2005 Dear
Steve Inch, Thank you
for your letter in which you specify amendments to the original conditions
set down in a letter we had received from Mr. Frank Sheridan of 10th
September 2005. We note its
contents and in particular that, “copies of applications to funding
sources and an indication of the time scales for their decisions” is
now required by 14th March 2005 as opposed to the original
requirement that all funds should be in place by then. Whilst we
are pleased with this most critical and important change there are we think
serious matters that arise from it. We would
like to echo the point made in our last letter that we are seriously
concerned on how a department such as yours and subsequently an elected
sub-committee arrived at allocating a timeframe of six months in which to
develop our proposal. You say in your letter that it is the
‘council’s position to ensure that you (Trust) have the maximum
opportunity to develop your proposal’. We assume that the six months
allocation is based on previous experience of similar projects and can be
realistically achieved. The Trust would hope that the council could identify
previous proposals so as to assist and guide us in developing our proposal. We have
consulted with a wide range of expertise and indeed through advertising and
interviewing selected a prestigious local architectural company to proceed
with our options analysis and feasibility study. Unanimously the view has been
expressed that the conditions laid down were clearly those that would almost
certainly guarantee failure at the first hurdle. More so was this the case, as we
suggested in our last letter, was the fact that we have been pitched against
a national company that will have available full professional services and
the capital costs for its proposals! The Trust
would like to take this opportunity to let the council know what we believes
can be realistically achieved by the deadline set. a)
a copy of the completed
feasibility or near completed feasibility study and development proposal b)
a copy of the
proposed income sources for capital works, and proposed applications to
funding sources and indication of the timescales for their decisions, and c)
a copy of the Trust’s
business plan for the project demonstrating its financial viability. This,
after having taken advice is we believe a realistic assessment of what is
achievable in the next five months. Within
the spirit of the new legislation in respect of Community Planning
Partnerships it really is rather surprising that a Community Trust such as
ours should be treated so aggressively. More so that as soon as we
objected the decision was changed immediately. This process in itself has added
valuable time to the process, time taken out of the scale set. Indeed, we are left to wonder why and
how such a decision was made in the first place. Now, we
recently reported on our web commitments made by the council leader, Stephen
Purcell at the recent East Pollokshields Community Planning Meeting chaired by Lord
Best of the Rowntree Trust at which the leader was
a keynote speaker.; ·
he was totally committed to the
concept of community partnership and had ensured that he would chair the
council group in this area. ·
there would be a need
to change the culture in the council in respect of how decisions were
made and he was "well up for
the debate about how decisions were made". ·
social renewal and regeneration were at
the heart of the agenda and there was a need for there to be more focus on
people. ·
the Council's role
along with Community Partnerships was to tackle problems identified by
people and show that people can make a difference After some discussion our Board
has come to the view that if indeed it is the case that, “social renewal and regeneration
are at heart of the agenda and
there was a need for there to be more focus on people” as leader Purcell stated, then we
should be given an opportunity to properly discuss the arrangements you have
imposed, since, having been through the process of selecting an architect it
has become clear that all of the prestigious companies we interviewed with
regard to the feasibility study would have found the time scale set most onerous and well nigh
impossible. In this regard we
note that the council itself in its original feasibility study completed by
EDAW and Park and Page set down a limit of 6 months for its delivery and in
fact it was published some 8 months late! Thus we would propose that a
meeting should be arranged that would involve yourselves,
our appointed architect, our project manager and representatives of our Board
and possibly one or two of our partners. The function of such a meeting would
be to properly share a delivery agenda that is not just built on a straight
business and property transaction principles but also fully incorporates what
the leader has clearly placed very high on the council’s policy agenda
in respect of Community Planning Partnerships. Yours sincerely Secretary GBCT
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