A lot of people were being shown round Old Abbey House last month. Now the autumn leaves are settling and the visits have slowed.
At present this building is a community asset that is not being used, and has been empty for several years. As a result the windows had to be protected.
Potential buyers will be working through the figures, deciding how much they can afford to pay, and what they will do with Old Abbey House.
The Friends of Abingdon Civic Society have put together a proposal that the building become an Arts and Community Centre for the Eastern Vale. A summary of their ideas can be seen on the Abingdon Civic Society web site.
The Vale of White Horse District Council Cabinet will consider a report on the commercial bids and the community proposals at a meeting on 4th December.
If the Vale Cabinet get a decent commercial bid: one that gives them the asking price (somebody mentioned £1m), and a use that is acceptable, then that will be considered.
If they get a community proposal that looks workable, then they could allow it to be progressed to see if it will work out.
If they get both, then it will be like comparing apples and pears.
Why does the community bid offer the £1m asking price? Then we’ll get to keep it “for us”?
No doubt Abingdon’s favourite builder would bid £1,000,001, and then negotiate the price down due to Covid-19.
It would be great to hear some views from our local councillors on this issue. Many of them read and post on this site, but it’s proving very difficult to get clarity on what the council are trying to achieve here.
There is some messaging that this is a ‘market testing’ exercise to understand what the site is really worth to inform decision making, and some other messaging that this is a sales exercise designed to offload the building for the maximum return (which would almost certainly rule out a community bid).
As The Veil is demonstrably not short of cash, why don’t they simply just gift it to the community?
They’d rather gift it to their favoured builder.