In case you had not heard, this is to say that the Cornwall Council Cabinet this morning felt unable to rush ahead with its plan to dispose of the Higher Trenant site. Thank you to those of you who made it into Truro, and to all the pressure that you have all collectively applied to force some semblance of sense to prevail for now. However they did not comply with all the Scrutiny Committee's recommendations in full, in that they have declared the Higher Trenant land next to the building surplus to requirements. This decision means that they are foreclosing their review's option of expansion for Higher Trenant, and that they are possibly opening the way for an early sale for an out-of-town supermarket.
This outcome makes it all the more urgent for us to expand our number of friends of lovewadebridge, thus adding weight to our campaign. You can join our friends by emailing your details to friends@lovewadebridge.com, or via our website at www.lovewadebridge.com/Friends.html
So in summary, this is definitely progress, but we must strengthen our campaign in preparation for the next phase. Again thank you for your support. We can only do this together.
Just for everyone’s interest I asked the following question at last Wednesday’s cabinet meeting:
ReplyDeleteQuestion
Was the cabinet aware the net cost of selling Trenant and building a replacement office in Bodmin would be a minimum of £2.5M before they agreed to a £200K budget 'to develop the business case for a new office in Bodmin'?
Answer
The development of the business case for a new office building in Bodmin is linked to a detailed consideration of the Council's accommodation requirements across the county. The level of capital receipt possibly to be gained on any disposal of the Higher Trenant building, and the level of cost possibly to be incurred in the construction of a new building in Bodmin, cannot at this stage be finalised, but have been estimated on the basis of market experience and relevant building cost indices. Before the Council commits to the sale of Higher Trenant or the construction of a new office the costs will be made explicit and reported to Members.
Following receipt of this so-called answer (which didn’t actually answer anything) I thought it appropriate to respond as follows:
Unfortunately, Mr Currie's answer did not address the question of whether cabinet were aware of the above numbers BEFORE they agreed the £200K budget. In the absence of an answer to this question I will assume cabinet were unaware that in agreeing to this budget they were in effect committing the council to a minimum expenditure of £2.5M should the business case for Bodmin be justified.
John Battersby