Stone Town Council will not be taking on Stone Youth Centre after negotiations broke down with the county council.
The youth centre – along with others across the county – closed on 31st December, and the county looked for not-for-profit organisations to take them on. Stone Town Council – which already manages the Frank Jordan Centre and Stone Station Community Centre – put in a bid, but says the costs and risks involved are too great.
The county council told us that it will maintain the building for the time being while its future is decided by its new Penda Property Partnership – a partnership between the county council and police and crime commissioner to review the county council and police’s property portfolio.
The town council issued this statement:
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n December 2014, the Town Council submitted a bid to operate the Stone Youth Centre building as a community centre. This was due to the decision of Staffordshire County Council to close the open access youth club in Stone and to cease operation of the Youth and Community Centre building.
The purpose of the Town Council’s bid was to ensure the continued availability of the Centre for both existing users and potential future users of this valuable community facility. The Town Council were expecting to subsidise the operation of the centre by around £23,000 per annum. Reductions were made in other areas of the Town Council’s budget to accommodate this without increasing the Town’s share of the Council Tax.
Extensive discussions have been held with the County Council with a view to the Town Council entering into a five-year lease to operate the Centre. As these discussions have progressed, however, more information has become available which has increased significantly both the potential cost and the risk to the Town Council. At a meeting on 4 June 2015, the Town Council reluctantly accepted that, as a small organisation with a very limited budget, it could not afford to take on the level of cost and risk now anticipated and asked the Town Clerk to go back to the County Council to attempt to renegotiate the terms of the lease.
Unfortunately, it did not prove possible to arrive at an agreement which was both acceptable to the County Council and in which the level of cost and risk would be manageable by the Town Council. On 2 July 2015, therefore, the Town Council decided to withdraw its bid to the County Council for operation of the Youth Centre building.
General Purposes Committee chairman Cllr Rob Kenney said: “I am disappointed that the Town Council has been unable to secure the future of the Youth Centre building, but unfortunately the level of cost and risk involved in accepting the lease being offered by the County Council was too great for an organisation the size of the Town Council. It would have resulted in both an unacceptable level of increase to the Town’s share of the Council Tax and a severe limitation in the funds we would have had available for other developments within the town.
“The Town Council already operates both the Frank Jordan Centre and the Stone Station Community Centre and we will do our best to accommodate any current Youth Centre users that would like to move to one of these facilities.”
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Mark Sutton, Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet support member for health and social care, said: “As part of the changes to the Youth & Community Service, in 2014 community organisations were invited to express an interest in running a number of former youth club buildings for the benefit of local people. At that time Stone Town Council expressed an interest in taking on the former Stone Youth Centre. However, following detailed discussions the Town Council has decided that it is unable to take on the lease of the building and has withdrawn its interest. The building will be maintained by Staffordshire County Council for the time being, whilst its future is considered by our Penda Property Partnership.”
[box type=”info” align=”aligncenter” ]The town council has renewed its lease with Stafford Borough Council to continue running the Frank Jordan Centre. The previous, 35-year lease expired last year. A sub-committee has been set up to look at funding the repairs that are needed to the building in Lichfield Street[/box]
