|
Babergh District Council has offered to help efforts to relocate a number of Hadleigh-based voluntary groups, should Suffolk County Council decide not to renew the lease on its community centre at East House.
Babergh owns the property with the County Council holding a 10 year lease which is shortly due to expire. The County Council in turn has allocated rooms to a number of voluntary groups. Indications suggest, however, that the County Council may not renew the lease when it expires in January 2006.
Tim Mutum, Babergh’s Head of Leisure & Community Services explained that “Babergh understands that the new administration at Suffolk County Council is reviewing all of its spending options and that one result may be that they decide not to continue using East House. We obviously respect the rationale for such a decision and Babergh Councillors will have to weigh up the various competing interests of users and Council Taxpayers once the County Council finally reveals its intentions”.
Babergh receives an annual rental of £35,000 – equivalent to 1% of the Babergh part of the Council Tax. In the event of this revenue being reduced, the shortfall may have to be recouped via the Council Tax.
In order to help Suffolk County Council find new accommodation for the various voluntary bodies which sub-let parts of East House, Babergh has offered to use its local knowledge of Hadleigh to identify alternative accommodation, should that be useful.
“This Council is keen to emphasise that it wants to co-operate with all to achieve a solution which balances the needs of the groups with those of all Council Taxpayers. We know it won’t be easy to find suitable accommodation, but we will help out as best we can. We look forward to helping the County Council should that be necessary” concluded Tim Mutum.
|