The lights are looking good in the town centre.
We do need the lights to cheer us up at this dark time of the year.
Poundland has re-opened and the number of flowers outside have grown since I took this picture.
The lights are looking good in the town centre.
We do need the lights to cheer us up at this dark time of the year.
Poundland has re-opened and the number of flowers outside have grown since I took this picture.
I drove past the market square this morning and saw a couple of stalls. Looked like an interesting little collection of stalls. Was it for anything in particular?
Daniel – Craft Market. It has been widely advertised around town and on the town website events calendar http://www.abingdon.gov.uk/events
It was supposed to be last weekend but was postponed because of the high winds. They are there till 3.00 – get down and have a look!
Anyone noticed the town council’s new plans for the Guildhall are up.
http://www.abingdon.gov.uk/minutes-agendas-15-16/guildhall-committee-15-16
The revised capital cost estimate is £2.1m. The council has £1m allocated funding so that means £1.1m from loan or increase in council tax.
For this we get a cafe, ground floor entrance and a revamped abbey hall.
I could find no mention of a business case, and I cant really see anything in there which will transform usage or the revenue finances which currently run at £155k pa subsidy.
I love Christmas. It is a nice time for children also. It is also time to put aside some of the commercialism and think of others who are less fortunate. People from the food bank in Abingdon were in Tesco collecting food donations. The Police were also collecting for vulnerable old people. Now they are collecting for the homeless in Oxford. A recent report said that the number of homeless sleeping rough in Oxford has gone up dramatically. A church in North Abingdon are offering a free Christmas lunch. They said that the only problem is getting people to come. It is the problem of publicity in Abingdon. I live out in the wild reaches of South Abingdon and we don’t often get news here.
Very interesting to look at the architects plans for the Guildhall. The improved access is great. The cafe is a huge step up from the existing facilities. However, as Iain says, what is missing is a reason for people to start hiring this building in enough numbers to allow it to break even.
The Abbey Hall is being re-designed as a lecture theatre/village hall. The new shallow stage would be fine for lectures, meetings and possibly stand-up but not for theatre or large concerts. The architects state that the hall will be suitable for theatre groups – no it won’t, for a huge long list of reasons. There is no proposal for a projection booth, so it cannot be used as a cinema.
So, we are getting a better version of what is already there but with reduced performance facilities. Where are all the new users going to come from? Why would groups that have not hired the building in the past suddenly flock there? Is the cafe going to be so much better than the others in town that it will make enough to balance all the books?
Our daughter has cooked and fed the homeless in London for years and believe me many many people enjoy a good Christmas meal
Iain..correct me if I’m wrong, (which I’m sure you will!), but when you were in charge of the guildhall project, weren’t you going to spend a damn site more than this, with the same ‘pop out cinema’ plus with the added extra of a 110 seat (for a 30,000 plus population!!!) cinema on the back? Don’t get me wrong..I am in no way in agreement with the money that’s been spent/wasted on the guildhall already (wasn’t it 100k under your watch without a single brick laid or in fact anything done?), and apart from demolition costs don’t want to see another penny wasted on it! I would rather see the 1960’s part demolished, it being the ugly useless, fit for no purpose monstrosity that it is…and a purpose built cinema/entertainment/bowling complex built in the heart of the town, (thevrun down Charter area which scotish widows seem to have abandoned plans for would be ideal)…which WOULD increase footfall in the town. But for you to run any plans down on this subject smacks a bit of sour grapes now and is very hypocritical!
You are wrong i’m afraid Julian. I was not proposing a pop up cinema. I was proposing a proper commercial cinema and indeed we had three feasible bids for this from reputable independent operators.
The capital costs were higher than the current plan but on the other hand we had offers for capital investment from the operators, and most importantly, at least one bid would have transformed the revenue finance of the building.
The reason the current town council say they rejected it was because they didn’t want to take out a loan yet this plan will require a loan of almost the same amount yet without the generating any revenue to pay for it (which means we all pay more council tax).
How’s your FOI request on the Guildhall project going, Iain?
I have a response but 20 pages long and heavily redacted
Not so much freedom for not so much information, eh Iain?
It may be the way you asked the question that is causing the redaction. Drop a line to AbingdonFirst Iain, they are pretty good at making successful FOI requests.
It would still be worth passing the 20 pages to Abingdon First so they can publish what you’ve got and chase-up any important issues which the document hasn’t addressed.
Iain, how are your obvious grievances about the much revised plans for the cinema project, and the conflict that now exists between yourself and the town council being viewed by you local Conservative party? Surely you don’t expect to ever be nominated for a local councillor post after the amount of criticism you’ve heaped upon your ex colleagues ?
I’ve no issue with the conservative party thank you Steve, and I remain a Conservative as someone who believes in running a strong economy. Sadly I dont think the current plans for the Guildhall seem consistent with this as they look like costing us a load more money for few extra facilities.
As far as my former party colleagues are concerned, I think only five of them are on the current council and I’d urge them to look more closely at the business case.
I appreciate your concern for my renomination prospects Steve – It is not something I am losing much sleep about.
Newcomer/Daniel – I’m afraid I don’t like the tone of Abingdon First site so I don’t want to share it on that site – I’ll happily pass them on to Backstreeter if he wants. Unfortunately they only gave me a hard copy so not easy to circulate until i get round to scanning them,
In terms of wording – I’m happy that I got confirmation of the things I was interested in, but I’m not sure it will be very informative to people coming new to the plans.
Very patronising….
Just honest
The accounts up to 30/11/15 show quite a considerable loss in which the expenditure on Wages and Salaries contributes a lions share.When all the refurbishments have been done where do they expect the massive increase in income to cover the usual(past) historical costs will come from?.Based on past letting and hire,these no way covered the costs.Some of the previous hirers such as ADFAS will probably not be encouraged back by massive increases in hire charges no matter how good the improvements might be.Would we be correct in assuming that for 16/17 there will be no income and no expenditure ,other than capital costs?
There was a post on here a month or so ago…by someone with vast experience in exactly how the Guildhall needs to be run, in order to pull a substantial profit; at the same time as providing the People of Abingdon with a venue they want, and will use, as well as a go to venue for miles around….all with minimal cost to the rate payer. A win, win, win situation…?
Please tell me that someone who had Abingdon’s interests, and the Guildhalls interests at heart….followed up this invaluable lead. P_l_e_e_e_a_s_e!!?
Iain, I hadn’t particularly noticed a tone; but either way, and however suits, it’d be good if the information you have could reach a wider audience.
Personally I think the problem with the guildhall complex is more fundamental in that the responsibility for providing Abingdon with a social/events/arts centre ought to be the responsibility of the district council who ought to be better funded and staffed to run such a venue? It’s much too big a project to be handled by the town council and as well meaning as they may be they are little more funded or have the resources to draw on than a parish council. It was quite wrong of the vale to off load it as they did. South Oxon dc operate the cornerstone centre in Didcot which begs the question that once more Abingdon has been poorly served, Oh, here’s a thing too, while looking at the contact details for the cornerstone I not their email address as @southoxondc, yet the vales email addresses have dissolved into “southandvale” Is Abingdon really that insignificant ?
The 16/17 proposed budget is an inflationary increase on 15/16 geoff – so still c £150k subsidy.
Personally I wouldmt mind the subsidy id the utilisation was higher but its still running at about 12%, which means it’s in effect empty 6 days a week.
I dont remember the post Daniel – i guess people can claim whatever experience they want here, with little need for checking (challenge of social media). We did have a firm bid which would reduce/eliminate the cost to the taxpayer (including any loan costs) and that’s what the council decided to reject because it was ‘unaffordable’. My challenge is what makes them think this scheme is affordable given it will cost the rate payer more money as it has to cover the costs of the debt finance,
Steve – whilst the change in ownership debates were all well before my time, it is worth noting that under the district council the subsidy was even higher (approaching £250k per annum if memory serves) and they usage was even lower at around 10%. That also excludes the £30k pa savings from moving the town council offices to roysse court.
I remember the post well…but even me, in my perpetually positive state of optimism wouldn’t have made any Guildhall plans off the back of what was said on this blog – no matter how erudite the point made. But if someone were genuinely interested in sorting the Guildhall I’d expect them to gather information from anywhere and everywhere, including friendly little blogs like this. And, with that in mind, once I read an interesting post on the subject which I were tasked, i would have explored it as an avenue, and would perhaps have had a chat over a pint, and then, if fruitful, a meeting over a coffee, and who nose what may have come of it?
But then, in my naivety I just assumed such a simple (and cheap) route to glean expert information (potentially), was worth a tenner of tax payers money and a half hour of someone’s time. Still…what’s that, when theres a consultants pocket to line? Use ’em or lose ’em, eh?
(This isn’t a gripe at you Iain, just a general whistle in to the wind).
I havent had any responsibility for guildhall since start of may Daniel – so no more need for me to meet with anyone that posts here than you or anyone else.
On a related point though, one of the questions i asked in my FOI request was, ‘what contact had been made with the vendors by the new council given no members of the original guildhall committee remained in post’. The answer was that the new committee made no contact with any of the bidders in the six weeks between their being appointed and all of their phase one bids being rejected outright. I’ve worked in procurement for the last 15 years and I cant imagine why any organisation would do this.
Thanks for the clarity Iain. I understand that you haven’t been involved for a while, …it was a general “wouldn’t it be good if…”
On the wider point of ”what the bejeepers are the council playing at!!??”…welcome to our World!
The current proposals for the Guildhall, which will be voted on on Tuesday evening, are indeed for a scheme that will cost around £2.1m, meaning that we will need to borrow £1m or so.
The cost of borrowing this £1m will be about £50K a year and we are confident that the savings in the annual net cost will more than cover that cost. We expect additional income from the cafe, from a higher rate of room bookings and from savings on staff costs compared to the pre-closure position.
This compares with a much higher capital cost of the previous proposals which would have resulted in, in my judgement, much greater risk.
This will fund a new ground level ground floor including a cafe/reception, tourist information and fully refurbished toilets. (Solving the access problem much more cost effectively than the previous plans) On the first floor it covers a full refurbishment of the Abbey Hall including a new more flexible stage area, dressing room, more useable small kitchen, new glazing and dealing with the current major noise issues plus sound and lighting.
It also covers the remaining work needed in the historic parts of the building and a kitchen refurbishment.
The result will be that both floors will be fully accessible, the Abbey Hall will be much more fit for purpose and flexible, and that there will be much more flexibility in terms of catering provision.
My view, and I think one that is shared by most councillors, is that the Guildhall in its current form is never likely to run at a surplus (few council owned facilities of this type do), but that by investing in it in the right way we can significantly reduce the annual cost by bringing a lot more people through the doors.
(It’s worth saying that a chunk of this cost is things that would have needed to be done at some point anyway as the building has had very little investment at all over the years.)
Picking up Daniel’s points about how to run the place well – we have indeed taken advice about what we need to do to the acoustics/stage/lighting etc. in order to solve the sound problems and make it a more attractive venue for groups to perform in. We’ve also looked at what is needed to be able to run a pop-up cinema (similar to the ones runs in Wantage and Wallingford). The other point I would make is that, since May, we have been very careful to not pay for advice which the council had already paid for previously, given how much had already been spent.
Geoff – we have no intention of charging more for room hire. Our view is that the previous rises put many users off and may well have reduced total income overall. Our aim is to get many more people through the door and that may well mean lowering some hire charges.
Captainkaos2 – This project is now much smaller in cost and scale than the Museum refurbishment was, which the TC handled well. South Oxon certainly does the run the very good Cornerstone Centre but it costs them a pretty penny to do so.
Thanks Neil, this is interesting and good to hear. However from what you have said – albeit in summary on a blog – I do not feel confident that “the right people” have been spoken to in order to run the place at a profit, but am happy to be proved wrong, of course.
My fear is, is it will still be a quiet little backstreet venue that comendably, is now made to be ‘better’ for some things…but not actuly ‘brilliant’ for anything.
Have the agents of the best ‘acts’ that would use such a place been contacted, and asked what it is that they’d expect to see, in order to have them use the venue? Or…has someone who knows about lighting been asked….about lighting?
As I’ve said, for the price of a pint…you could likely get some erudite advice from the shop floor…
Still….fingers crossed.
neil – are you going to publish a business case, before borrowing two thirds (£50k rather than £75k) of the amount of money that the previous propsals which you criticised as ‘inaffordable’?
From your comments there are immediate concerns….
The town council already runs a cafe in an even more central location – my understanding is that this makes little or no profit – what makes you think the new cafe will be different?
You say you are expecting more bookings and to run a new service (the cafe) yet staffing is going to reduce – previously there was one full time manager and two part time staff plus a number of occassional staff for specific events. It’s difficult to see how these numbers will add up.
Finally, i note your comment about never being able to run a surplus – what a shame you turned down an offer from a third party which would have done exactly that, and deliver a cinema to the town, rather than yet another cafe.
I’m afraid I remain deeply sceptical about the council’s commercial capability and sadly I am expecting this to end up with the subsidy to the guildhall increasing leading to either unnecessary cuts elsewhere or an unnecessary council tax increase.
This is all so disappointing you know, instead of Abingdons best interests being uppermost once more an important and significant project degrades to a spat among local councillors! Abits, the Old Gaol, the Precinct and now the Guildhall, I say again, we are being very poorly served, Neal, if Iain’s plans were so bad why didn’t you speak up before the thing got so far down the line? Iain, if there really was a third party willing to invest and bring about profitability along with e new community asset which was then turned down by the tc then surely you have a duty to reveal them? If only to redeem yourself!
…whilst you all argue amongst yourselves, could you spend some cash on a decent manager, who knows how to run a venue, so whilst we go through the “he said, she saids”, the rest of us can get on with enjoying a properly managed venue.
You never know, running it ” well”, may be the simplest and cheapest way forwards?
In answer to Steve’s comment 29. I’m afraid I will not reveal confidential information – this is down to the council to decide. However…
Quote from confidential report of the town clerk to the guildhall committee 11/6/15 that was provided in response to my foi request which unequivocally confirms my previous assertion….
’53. However, there are substantial in that even if the Town Council did take a loan, based on their figures the Council’s revenue position would be very significantly improved . The Council would have achieved its objective of bringing cinema back to Abingdob and the additional on costs of running the Guildhall service, in terms of the Council administrative and management suppodt given to the Guildhall, which is very substantial, would no longer apply. Consequently both financial and staff resource could be devoted to development and maintenance of other services, or reducing council revenue (council tax) requirements.’
Does this help make it clear why I am so disappointed both personally and on behalf of council tax payers, in the decision the Town Council are busily taking?
In answer to Steve’s comment 29. I’m afraid I will not reveal confidential information – this is down to the council to decide. However…
Quote from confidential report of the town clerk to the guildhall committee 11/6/15 that was provided in response to my foi request which unequivocally confirms my previous assertion….
’53. However, there are substantial (redacted) in that even if the Town Council did take a loan, based on their figures the Council’s revenue position would be very significantly improved (redacted). The Council would have achieved its objective of bringing cinema back to Abingdon and the additional on costs of running the Guildhall service, in terms of the Council administrative and management suppodt given to the Guildhall, which is very substantial, would no longer apply. Consequently both financial and staff resource could be devoted to development and maintenance of other services, or reducing council revenue (council tax) requirements.’
Does this help make it clear why I am so disappointed both personally and on behalf of council tax payers, in the decision the Town Council are busily taking?
Apologies for resubmitting – for some reason the redacted notes disappeared when i posted it the first time – i think i may have used html notation inadvertently
Iain, as an ex councillor and once prime mover of this project I think it very subversive of you to continually mock the latest plans on the basis of ” I know something you don’t but I’m not telling” it serves no purpose ?
I understand you’re a governor at Larkmead? Might I suggest your time may be better spent persuading your fellow governors to open the rear entrance to the school which would reduce the amount of your pupils playing Russian roulette with traffic at the new Ock St layout and to lobby OCC as to the traffic chaos it has now caused?
Steve
Post 29 – you call into question whether there actually was a deal on offer which would have transformed the Guildhall’s finances
Post 32 – i give you a verbatum quote from the town clerk proving there was such an offer
Post 34 – you ignore the response and change the subject
You always do this Steve so I see no point in answering your questions
Iain – we are planning to borrow about a third of what would have been needed for the previous plan.
On your point about what the previous plan ‘would’ have achieved, I think it would be fairer to say ‘might’ have achieved. It definitely would have involved the council borrowing significantly more money for the capital cost. If it had then worked, i.e. a small cinema with very high attendance on an ongoing basis, then it might have worked. We had to balance the risk involved in borrowing a lot more money with how likely we thought the scheme was to work long term. My view, on balance, was that we shouldn’t take the risk.
Captainkaos2 – I hadn’t seen all the detail of the either the business case or the bids before the elections. I had asked questions at each Annual Town Meeting about the finances of the Guildhall over the last four years and attended a meeting with Iain and others in the Guidhall to ask questions about his plans.
As soon as I was elected I went through all the paperwork to inform my subsequent decision.
Daniel – quite a lot of research has been done, including consulting people with experience in running arts centre type venues and on the acoustics etc. The key to making the venue more attractive to more acts is to make the Abbey Hall space as flexible as possible from a performance point of view, which is what we are trying to do, and to deal with the noise issue which severely restricted what events could take place.
One discussion we had was whether we were aiming to run events ourselves, which would mean employing a manager to run and market things, or whether we would run the facility for other people/groups/companies to put on events. The former is the more expensive option.
The former approach did not work when it was tried over the last few years, and because of that and our intention to take a low risk approach, we went for the latter.
Picking up Iain’s point about staff costs, this is one way we can make a saving in the core costs. Other savings will come from combining the cafe/reception/tourist information in one place.
As others have pointed out, the bulk of the nearly £200K a year the Guildhall has cost recently was in the staffing costs. Push them down and we make quite a contribution to reducing the net running costs.
I disagree with your commercial assessment Neil
In terms of the amount needed to be borrowed, all three vendors when questiond said they would work in a way where the council’s borrowing could be limited to £1.5m so only £0.4m higher than you are proposing.
And in terms of the projected revenue certainty – the most attractive of the deals offered a lease income plus removed the council’s operating costs. So the risk is carried by the operator not the council. This is what the minute i quoted in post 32 refes to.
What I find most stunning of all is that the mew council did not speak with any of the potential vendors to explore their concerns, and given none of the current guildhall committee were on the old guildhall committee this seems somewhat negligent.
But it sounds like you’ve all made up your minds so there’s nothing I can do to change what will happen. I stop lamenting the passing of what was a great opportunity for the town and the council, and instead will ready my bank account for the increase in council tax which will no doubt follow when you start to deal with the realities of the operating model you seem to be sleepwalking towards.
Just wondering if anyone in the council had considered Julian Annells suggestion of bulldozing it and having a commercially paid multi-purpose venue built elsewhere in the town?
Iain, you are STILL looking at your previous vanity project with rose-coloured glasses…as told to you numerous times, and on numerous occasions, your “vision” was only ever going to be a very small cinema, for a very large substantial town…and if Aunty Mabel had booked the hall for her 99th birthday, then EITHER the latest Star wars blockbuster would be delayed, OR someone was going to have to tell Auntie Mabel that her birthday bash that she had booked 3 years ago was going to have to be cancelled! And even if it wasn’t and you had a full capacity of 200(?) seats, then who exactly was going to explain to the queues of people that “sorry, we have filled those 200(?) seats, come back tomorrow and you MAY get in…”
This was a white elephant from the start…the District Council must have laughed their socks off when they off-loaded this pup!
Yes Richard – costs were really prohibitive
Julian – the operator we turned down had spectre on release day and did in one venue nearly 20,000 tickets to Spectre in one month – this was in a smaller town than abingdon. You hear what you want to hear – i have never described the service the way you do.
Was there a meeting about the Guildhall, tonight?
Yes Daniel – see link on my first post for the papers
Iain, what were the costs to demolish?
I went to the meeting: not surprisingly the Guildhall Committee approved all the proposals in the paperwork Iain refers to. Only two questions were asked. The proposals were then going to the Finance & General Purposes Committee then the full Council – I didn’t stay for those, but would be surprised if anything changed.
They believe the increased net income from hirings and the cafe will more than cover the costs of the £1m loan so they won’t need to raise their Council Tax precept. The Business Plan on which this is based will be available at the end of January.
It is interesting (within certain limits, that are in no way a reflection on how exciting my life actually is) what ‘issues’ generate the most responses on this great blog.
Has anyone else noticed?
Just an update – my FOIs regarding council use of consultants and also issues regarding the Ock St crossings have been received, and responses due by early January…
Welcome to the world of the ordinary council-tax payer, Iain … it is a tad annoying to be told that you don’t have a grasp of the ‘total picture’ when you aren’t allowed access to all the relevant information, isn’t it?
Would the council kindly (and responsibly) not embark on any more expensive adventures without full disclosure to Abingdon’s taxpayers?
Too much to hope for, I suspect.
Iain – yes, we clearly disagree.
Your assessment would be right IF their plans turned out as they said they would, but what if they didn’t? The TC could be left having funded a purpose built facility that didn’t work, with a large debt and the same annual net cost.
I had a look at a few sets of accounts for community run cinemas to compare their figures with the ones in the previous business plan. What they showed was that even cinemas that were significantly larger than the proposed Abingdon ones had income far lower than was in that business plan. Yes, there would be weeks when a cinema would sell out when films like SPECTRE or the new Star Wars came out, but that doesn’t happen most weeks. Your example illustrates the challenge of this – 20K tickets in a month is 640+ per day, which would have meant two full screenings every day in both the cinema and the Abbey Hall for a whole month. How many cinema goers would wait three weeks to see an afternoon showing of SPECTRE when they could just as easily pop to Oxford or Didcot in the first week?
I also don’t recognise your figures for the amount of capital we would have needed to raise, and I’m not sure how we would have been able to raise it.
And then there is the issue of effectively handing over control of the building.
So my judgment is that it wasn’t the right deal for Abingdon TC. I think it was worth trying, and if an operator had come forward with the bulk of the capital themselves I might have had more confidence that they though it was a viable scheme.
Whether the new scheme will work I can’t say, but I think it is the best of the available options. It limits the amount of risk and will create a refurbished building with a lot of flexibility built in to its future use. The projections in our business plan will be fairly modest and based on increased usage, but nothing astronomical, additional income from the cafe and a reduced cost base.
We may turn out to be wrong, as you may have been if your scheme had gone ahead, but it won’t be due to ‘sleepwalking’ into anything.
This is a very unfortunate situation, unfortunate in that people who are prepared to step up to the mark ( and that includes you Iain) end up being pilloried because ( and I mean this with the greatest of respect) end up in hopeless situations, although I’m not defending anyone I think it wrong of the public to expect “mere councilors” to tackle projects as large as this one, that said they could, without the fear of being labeled inadequate call on a veritable army or very experienced, successful local business folk that could have, with time on their hands, come up with a plan that could be acceptable to all, just because a councillor gets appointed to represent his constituency doesn’t mean he alone is expected to research and seek all the options available, and before anyone says that’s what consultants are for, they will only ever give you their take on things
Couldn’t agree more captain. But hey…when it aint your cash…the consultants advise it best to spend money on consultants.
…I remain hopeful to get my FOI request concerning use of consultants to answered soon. Questions to my questions have been asked…
I’d just love to know how long it took to come up with a cafe suggestion. We need a cafe. Perhaps they could sell the same things as all the other cafes? I’m meeting a friend in town for an evening out tomorrow. Perhaps we’ll look for a cafe?
Captainkaos2 – your point is a fair one, but remember that quite a few councillors are themselves business folk, or retired business folk, or have other useful experience running various organisations. We can also call on professional advice, which we have done in this case, and that of our council officers.
‘Consultants’ is a bit of a catch all, of course. We have used architects, a quantity surveyor and an acoustics consultant among others. We would have been far more likely to get the plan seriously wrong if we hadn’t.
Daniel – the reason we went for the joint cafe/bar/reception is that the venue would need it anyway if we are hosting events and groups are booking rooms for meetings.
By combining those functions into one we reduce the overall costs while maintaining the income.
Any extra ‘walk-in’ trade would be a bonus, but our experience in the Museum Cafe is that there is some trade to be had.
There is no sign yet that the cafe market in Abingdon has been saturated yet.
Thank you Neil, a commendabley calm and thorough answer to an otherwise ranty and bilugerant post. Your patience and dialogue is appreciated.