The second public meeting about the Guildhall’s future also had a strong turnout with well over 100 people including about 8 councillors. The meeting had moved from the Roysse Room to St Helen’s Church, and everybody did get admitted this time. As can be seen, not many young people were there.

The format was much the same as last week and similar points were raised. It was pointed out by one speaker that it made it difficult to have ‘a discussion’ when the Town Council would not answer any questions or respond to any points raised.

OLD ROOMS

Currently the historic rooms of the Guildhall are not available for hire. By 2018, to allow better use of the ground floor and old magistrates court the following has already been given planning permission, and will go ahead:

* Accessible ground floor toilets
* Muniment room for archives
* Add platform lift to give access to the old magistrates court – previously used by the music centre
* Repaving of Roysse Court

The council also intends to open the rest of the building in 2018, but at present there is no disabled access to the Bear Room, Council Chamber or Abbey Room. The council’s proposed way of doing this would involve altering a historic staircase to install a lift. The council have already published a report saying that this staircase has been altered extensively in the past and so can be altered again to allow accessibility. The report also rejects the idea of an external lift. But they have agreed to seek an independent expert who can re-assess their findings.

NEW ROOM

The council is currently in discussion with other public-sector partners as to how the Abbey Hall can be used but are not at liberty to divulge these ideas as yet. The council would like to share these exciting ideas as soon as all affected parties have been properly consulted.

Thanks to a kind hand for writing and sending me this report

There was a meeting of the Finance and General Purposes Committee of Abingdon Town Council this evening. 16 members of the public were present. Four had registered a wish to speak and one of them reminded those present that we were only able to do so thanks to the efforts of former Councillor Janet Morgan, who had sadly died a few days ago. In the 1990s she had persuaded the Town and District Councils to introduce rules to allow this, which was unusual in local government at that time.The picture taken in 2011 shows her being made a Freeman of the town.

One speaker made a strong statement in favour of the planned lift in the old part of the Guildhall. The others were more concerned with the uncertainty over the future of the Abbey Hall and the need to fill the “dark hole” caused by the absence of any town centre venue for entertainment and leisure activities. 1445 people have now signed the online petition about this, and many others have signed the offline petition. Questions were asked about the plans for the Hall, the costs of the alterations to the historic parts of the complex and whether the Council have taken professional advice on ways of improving the accessibility of the building without destroying its historic features: answers weren’t forthcoming on the night but we were told that the Committee would be discussing them in confidential session later in the evening and replies would be sent after that. There is also likely to be a Press Release in the next few days about the future of the Abbey Hall.

The Committee then went in to a lengthy wrangle about the proposals for the former South Abingdon Childrens Centre. An impasse had arisen whereby both the Town and County Councils had agreed funding, but neither would enter a formal commitment quite yet.