Today a community interest group including local charities who have been trying to put together a proposal to continue running the South Abingdon Children’s Centre has run into a brick wall.
The Children’s Centre is due to close at the end of March because of OCC cuts to services, but could be saved by community investment.
However, the council is insisting that half of the commercial rent has to be paid in addition to the normal running costs for the building which means any community group would need to find £1,000 per week just to open the doors. Added to this the full costs of maintaining the building to its current standard have to be found.
For the 30 years I have lived in Abingdon there has been a centre to support children and families in South Abingdon. The need is as great as ever.
Is the same fate planned for the other Children’s Centres in Abingdon?
Yes, the County Council announced the closures in the Spring last year. The community group has been and will continue to try to keep one open in Abingdon for the town and local villages. The South Abingdon Children’s Centre was purpose built for young children and families and is in the area with the least facilities so the best one to concentrate on saving if possible.
As a new(ish) parent, the centre were an incredible resource during the early days and I don’t know where we would have turned had the centre not been there.
Is there anything we can do to help at this stage?
I know the cost cutting has come from central Government, but OCC could be more sympathetic…
There are other ways of funding these-if the will was there? All the new estates going up around Abingdon pay a level (106 money)which is supposed to be put to good use amongst the community they’re in or near, for instance the Morland Garden build has a condition that each household there received a £175 cycle allowance, and I think £25k contribution to the library. Both those amounts could have gone to support the centres, the swimming pool renovation includes a beach of which £45k towards its cost is coming from part of the old gaol levy ( wonder whose pot that’s been sat in all these years?)
There is money around, it’s just a matter of persuading the powers that be where to spend it.
A cut in overseas aid may be a good pot to raid too ?
Fear not. We have a tenacious, resourceful and vociferous local MP who is fighting tooth and nail for affected local families and employees.
Or something.
I went to the Mayors Carole service and had to stop myself shouting out. Nicola Blackwood did a reading about how scrooge became beneficial. The message was look after the poor and vulnerable. The hypocrisy when she voted to cut council grants by another 25%. All the services for the poor and vulnerable are being cut. Simon House which provides 52 beds for the homeless is being shut. The Health and Wellbeing Centre in Audlet Drive which services the isolated elderly is to close. However, we are sending millions to corrupt countries as Foreign Aid. We cannot send enough of our taxpayers money abroad. Also we have given tax cuts to the wealthy. The new Conservative buzz word is ‘Shared Society’ . It is as meaningless as ‘we are all in this together’ and the big society’.
We can afford to send money to poor overseas,
We can afford to look after our own,
But we don’t want to,
We want the money for ourselves,
So we vote conservative.
To pick up on Janet’s post I was in Oxford Sunday and was horrified at the amount of homeless sleeping rough, virtually every doorway of all the shops, even the big multies had a sleeper in their doorway, that’s unacceptable in this day and age !
Any offers of help, please email sacccommunitygroup@gmail.com
We are looking for some business ‘heads’ to help and any funding contacts to support a bid. Talks will continue with OCC regarding their requirements and the obvious needs in Abingdon for Children’s Centre services available to all.
Sorry to post ‘off topic’ but I notice all the Poundland signage has been taken down from above the windows today revealing where the Woolworths sign was fixed to the building, is our town centre thrift store closing or moving or…
Badger, according to their planning application of last September it’s new signage.
Ck2 – Thanks.
Nick (post 7) is right: for years we have bought in to the mantra that low income tax is good, low Council Tax is good, Council staff numbers should be cut etc etc.If we want a fair society, those who can afford to contribute to help those less fortunate than themselves need to be willing to tell our Councillors that the low-tax model is NOT what they want. So long as we keep voting for the “blue team” they will carry on behaving this way.
Being a bit naive to ask this, who should we choose instead? If not the blue team, then who? And why will that be any better? Wasn’t there another team in not so long ago; i thought there were issues with them too.
And, out of interest, who decides “who can afford to contribute”?
A good reminder, Daniel.
Just watch Trump, as a businessman sort the U S out? hes cancelled the 2 replacement Air Force Ines Obama ordered because of their 3 billion # price tag, he’s also threatened to cancel the F35 fighter plane too, and that’s a major prob for us because “Dave” told B A systems the catapult on our 2 new carriers was not needed because we’ll buy the F35 v tol, problem is the F35 is the only v too aircraft in production, looks like we’ll have 2 new billions of pounds each aircraft carriers with no aircraft to carry !
This does sound like a problem, but more pressingly; does anyone know what’s going in the old Supedrug premises?
Ref Captainkaos. We sold 72 Harrier jump jets to the US Marine Corps and gave them the technology. What is wrong with our politicians. We did not schedule our own replacement to the Harrier we were going to rely on the US to sell us the F35 fighter. This is what this country always does. believe that other countries will look after the UK. Another scandal was that we have given India more foreign and than any other country. France has only given India a fraction of the aid that we have given. And yet India bypassed the UK and gave a lucrative contract to France to supply 36 Rafale fighter jets. India scorns the foreign Aid we have poured into their country. If we are stupid enough to drastically cut services for our homeless, elderly and give ungrateful countries massive amounts of taxpayers money we really should get rid of all the appeasing politicians who make this possible.
Hey Janet, worse still are the dozen brand new Chinook helicopters that have been sat in a hanger, unusable for almost 10 years because the civil servant in charge of procuring them messed up with the spec so badly that to modify them to be fit for purpose would exceed the original cost!
Monday we saw McGuiness and co in Northern Ireland resign over the wood chip reimbursement fiasco presided over by the first minister that has so far cost the tax payer a staggering £500 million!
Nearer to home OCC managed to find several million pound contribution toward an A35 diamond junction in the middle of nowhere? Chilton that is, but our justifiable claim for similar at lodge hill falls on deaf ears?
There is plenty of money in the pot, it’s just not spent properly!
Even closer to home the vale evicted the TC from old Abbey House along with a £1 million sweetener to move into the guildhall premise, they said they wanted to dispose of that asset, 3 years on Old Abbey House is still boarded up, the guildhall has been closed for a year and a rather naive councillor was let lose with the budget and promptly wasted £100k of it on consultants and architects!!’
Apparently we couldn’t afford to subsidise the Tylsey park athletic complex so it was given, yes given to Abingdon school who already happen to be one of the towns biggest landowners, the 20 acre complex just happened to be in the middle of a proposed 600 house estate, the obvious question is,” if we can’t afford to run it, why wasn’t it sold for building thus putting a whopping £20 million into the vales pot! Shall I go on?
The South Abingdon Children’s Centre is hugely important to local families and the current building was funded by ‘Section 106’ funding from the Caldecott Chase and other local developments about 15 years ago.
In other local towns and parishes, including Henley, Wallingford and Chalgrove/Watlington, the local Town and Parish Councils are committing reasonably sized contributions to back up community fund-raising efforts to keep centres going.
The majority group on Abingdon Town Council has so far refused to do so. If they can be persuaded, it could help make a scheme viable.
http://www.heraldseries.co.uk/news/14787076.Council_stays_firm_on_refusal_to_pledge_cash_for_children__39_s_centres/
Neil, what I don’t understand is- if the centre was built with 106 money and for the good of the community why does the mantle of landlord fall with OCC? More over why are they charging rent on something that was built for the community ?
Assuming it was purpose built they’d be hard pushed to rent it to anyone else, so I presume it will stand empty? Then they get no rent from anyone? And what of the staff, will they be made redundant? What a shambles !
Yes Capt K, this is all part of confusion as to what “community” means, who can make decisions on its/our behalf and who is responsible/accountable for doing the best for us. Under our arcane system this is divided between three levels of local government and the situation is made worse by a central government which preaches localism but has consistently eroded the powers – and financial independence – of local authorities. There is no mechanism for effective co-operation between the levels of local government so as in this case the TC are reluctant to support the Childrens Centre rescue plan because they feel it is the County Counci’s responsibility and they don’t want to set a precedent.
There are discussions going on at present about a possible shake-up of local government in Oxfordshire but sadly there is no sign that these will be driven by what is best for the delivery of services to the community – or that we will be given a meaningful opportunity to make our views known.
Last summer I visited Switzerland where they have a very different approach: responsibility (and funding) for all local services including education is devolved to the “commune” (parish equivalent) but decisions on policies and expenditure priorities are not taken by elected councillors but by quarterly community meetings which anyone can attend. So Councillors are not elected with a 4-year mandate to do whatever they want, but must get public support for their programme and are effectively continuously accountable. And those of the public who want to play an active part in the decision-making have an opportunity to do so. Quite a contrast!
As usual CK2 you continue to enjoy operating in the post-truth generation!
Whilst I agree with the thrust of your point, and some of the specifics, you continue to perpetuate that £100k was wasted by me on the Guildhall. As I have repeatedly been forced to state on this forum that is untrue.
The expenditure had reached around £80k when I was unable to continue in my position. None of it would have been wasted had the Council taken what I continue to believe would have been its best decision for the town, to proceed with an extremely attractive offer from a commercial cinema operator which would have generated an annual improvement in the cost position for the council of £110k (and got 130k visits to the building and given the town a cinema and liver performance venue).
Even given they decided against this (and based on recent artfules in the Herald are clearly now struggling financially) the bulk of the money spent under my stewardship is still required for the current plan in any case, so was not wasted. These were things like architectural plans (fixed price contract), structural survey, acoustic surveys etc. Only a small amount of these costs were related to the cinema specifically – approx £15k which you can happily blame me for wasting if you must.
I hope in vain you may stop repeating these lies but I note above you look to Trump as a model so I wont be holding my breath.
Iain your are, or rather were, a very small cog in a very big wheel that seems to be spinning out of control, going back to the theme am I getting this right?
OCC is given a purpose built centre free of charge or build cost courtesy of a local development? Shall we call that pot A ? The sign says clearly OCC children’s centre, call it pot B, OCC have a property department , pot C, so pot A give money to pot B to run s children’s centre? Pot B has to pay rent to pot C? Pot C collects the rent on behalf of pot A?? Now pot A says it can’t afford to reduce the rent and is looking for an increase, or they’ll close it? Has anyone told pot A (OCC) they don’t actually get any real rent? So what’s the difference to pot A whether it closes or not?
I can’t believe this !
I fully agree with you about the childrens centres – its disgraceful and a nutty decision – i havent met anyone in abinhdon who wants to see them close. per hester’s earlier post, would be entirely avoidable if we didnt have this idiotice three tier system of local government.