Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council held a special town council meeting this evening. The only thing to be discussed on the agenda was a confidential property matter. The town council say on their website ‘Abingdon Town Council has been negotiating with the Abbey Cinema regarding a new lease for the cinema for some time.
Recently the Cinema submitted a proposal for a new lease which is substantially different than that which we have been negotiating on.
The Council meeting on Thursday 25 August has been called so we can give matters our speedy consideration.’
On the other hand, the Abbey Cinema has said
‘The current situation is that both we and the council appointed our own professional negotiators to agree terms and to commission jointly financed reports on the state of the building prior to lease. This identified that considerable investment is required (c.£345k on roof and regulatory compliance and a further c.£280k over the next 5 years). We have offered to take on £400k of this investment.
We thought things were going well, if very slowly. Or we did until we received from the council’s solicitors on 4 August an unexpected communication containing notice that if we did not sign by the end of August, they anticipated instructions to give us notice of termination. The lease provided for signature was in draft form and bears no relation to preceding negotiations. We cannot understand this.’
The Abbey Cinema is an asset to Abingdon I hope all goes well for them.
That’s bonkers! I assume the council would rather the building was empty and left to decay? The mind actually boggles with how decisions at the council are made.
Welcome to Abingdon!
What’s the betting on some councillor tryng to drive through a deal to show what a tough cookie he/she is …
The TC has put out a further statement today saying:
“Abingdon Town Council has been negotiating with the Abbey Cinema regarding a new lease on the Abbey Hall for almost three years.
The current lease terminates at 30 November 2022 and the council has been pressing for some time to conclude negotiations.
Following a reminder earlier this month that the lease was coming to an end, the Abbey Cinema submitted a proposal for a new lease on 10 August 2022. In some key areas this proposal is substantially different from the current lease.
The Council meeting on Thursday 25 August 2022 was called to respond to the Abbey Cinema’s proposals for a new lease.
The Mayor Cllr Andy Foulsham stated that “we were surprised and disappointed that the cinema decided to start negotiating in public. We were very pleased to hear from local residents about how they value and use the cinema and we were able to reassure everyone that the Council recognises the importance of the cinema and has worked over many years to ensure that it continues to be a successful part of the town.
“At the meeting the Council, with its advisors, took three hours going through the Abbey Cinema’s lease proposals clause by clause. We concluded that there was a lot of common ground between their proposals and our original ones, and so have instructed our representative to go back to them to resolve the remaining issues, which will hopefully lead to a lease being agreed that will secure the long-term future of the cinema in Abingdon.”
This sounds reassuring but we will see what happens next…..
“surprised and disappointed”; perhaps the TC means “embarrassed”? It all sounds a no brainer and the TC should be bending over backwards to accommodate the cinema operators, not making it slow or awkward or cumbersome…
Daniel – it isn’t the Town Council that have been slow. They have been asking the cinema to respond to proposals for months. The solicitors letter seems to have done the trick.
“The Mayor Cllr Andy Foulsham stated that “we were surprised and disappointed that the cinema decided to start negotiating in public.”
This is how all Council business should be conducted … in public. Then, perhaps, public comment would be based on points of substance rather than speculation.
There are regulations about the level of confidentiality that councils have to apply when it comes to commercial negotiations. This is primarily to safeguard the interests of local taxpayers. If, for example, a different company came along wanting to lease the Abbey Hall to run a cinema the Town Council would wantg to negotiate the best possible income on behalf of taxpayers. That wouldn’t be possible if the details of the current negotiations were public.
Is it because it is over 5 years.?? .
They want to resolve roof, and new regulations. These will change over a short period of time. It seems in the meeting the changes are not that different. There are only a few details to resolve. This time the cinema group employed their solicitor and a third party professional negotiation.
They handed the hall lease to the Cinema rather than have it decay. Do they now want to sell this asset?, as done with other buildings. If the cinema want to invest in the building to the sum of £400k,
Both the cinema and the Town Council have solicitors and professional negotiators which is normal for a lease of the value being negotiated here.
There is no proposal to sell the asset. Both the cinema and the Town Council want to agree a longer term lease.