Mayor’s blog 33
It has been a bit of a roller coaster week. We have received the decision on the Allimore Lane appeal. Sadly the inspector and the Secretary of State found against us and failed to take to any of our arguments into account. Not having the support of SDC was unhelpful. The time for recriminations is now past and we must move on but it is frustrating that material inaccuracies were accepted by the inspector and allowed to influence the decision. However on a positive note, we are and always have been willing to work with the developers in making the best scheme possible for the town. We hope that this will be possible.
A decision was made on Monday at SDC regarding the Greig Hall. As you know the actual hall has been closed for nearly 3 years and we are not sure of its current condition. The Lifestyles building has become run down and in need of refurbishment. All in all the centre is in a sorry state. A vote was taken by the SDC Cabinet and option two of the three presented was unanimously accepted. Option two means that there will be a managed handover from the trustees to SDC. ATC have indicated a willingness to run the Greig Community Hall which would mean that Alcester could have its hall back, this time run by the community for the community. So now the hard work begins. We need enthusiastic volunteers to help run and manage the hall. If this appeals to you or if you know someone who is interested then please contact Alcester Town Council. The Lifestyles building will be run by SDC via their sports facility management company. This is excellent news for the whole community but it will not be easy. There may even be some that would like us to fail. Let’s not allow that happen. We must therefore run the hall as efficiently as possible and get the whole community behind us. Finally on this subject I want to thank all of those people who have made superhuman efforts to get the hall back into use. I include all the efforts by our town and district councillors, the Greig Hall Action Committee and the 1400+ people that voted to prevent the hall being developed for housing. Without them the centre could now be a pile of rubble. Well done one and all.