Parish Council awaits confirmation of funding before signing contracts

festivalhall

Whilst the new parish councillors have only been in position since Tuesday, 12th May, they have already done quite a bit of work in relation to the new medical centre and refurbishment of the Festival Hall.

At the Parish Council meeting on Monday, 18th May, Councillor Ruth Norbury spoke about the refurbishment of the rear of the Festival Hall.

She explained "I have spoken to Cheshire East Council today, they wanted confirmation that the new council is still committed to the project, the refurbishment of the rear of the Festival Hall and confirming the funding streams with which to do that. You probably know that the Festival Hall came with a lot of repairs needed and the previous Parish Council negotiated a dowry which is capital sum of £300,000 and an annualised sum of £15,000 a year over ten years - of which we have already received seven.

"I have confirmed today that, having been fully briefed by both Ashley and Anne, and also by our Project Manager who is Fred Slater from Arcus - who is our representative on both this construction project and the Medical Centre. So a full briefing from him, at which all nine of us attended, we have reconfirmed our commitment to that project and the scope of works as it stands and the funding subject to one thing. Cheshire East hadn't been approached about the capitalisation of the last three payments of £15,000 which basically we want up front as a capital sum towards this project. I don't imagine that will be an issue but we have to apply for the three payments to be capitalised early on in the project."

Ruth then went on to provide an update regarding the Medical Centre project.

She said "Nine o'clock on Tuesday Geoff and I were on the phone to the solicitors representing us, used to be Pannone they're now Slater & Gordon, just getting an update on where we stand because at that stage the contract document and agreement for lease with the doctors hadn't been signed and wasn't in state to be signed. There were only minor issues. The last Parish Council were hoping to sign that last Monday, whilst they were still parish councillors but that wasn't possible just because of the minor issues.

"We then went to Emerson, we needed to familiarise ourselves with the building contract which we did and since then we've been looking at other aspects. The good news is that the building contact and agreement for lease are now ready to be signed. We are in a position to sign that.

"However, there is one other thing we need to do first. We don't yet have a full evidence of the funding we are to use for the construction of the Medical Centre. That's the £2 million grant, which is inline to be provided by the Public Works Loan Board, which is part of central government. And as far as know that is not yet in place, so as yet we are not able to sign the building contract and agreement for lease. I am not prepared to authorise or recommend anyone from this parish council signs a contract for such sums of money when the funding stream is not yet confirmed. It's too big a risk for us to take but then I am sure you wouldn't want us to anyway.

"We are pursuing that as quickly as possible. We may not know yet for a few days whether we can go ahead straightaway or whether there may be some delay. We are also working with members of the previous Parish Council to achieve this."

Ruth added "There will be an awful lot of work going on in the next few weeks."

Chairman Geoff Hall comment "As soon as we're in a position to do so we will have an informal meeting at which we will present what we have already found out and what our thoughts are and to give people more time to feed into that."

Tags:
Alderley Edge Medical Centre, Alderley Edge Parish Council, Festival Hall, Ruth Norbury
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Graham Nicholson
Tuesday 19th May 2015 at 12:58 pm
The front of the Festival Hall has been demolished to make way for the new medical centre, but the funding stream for that 'is not yet confirmed'... Mmm... have I missed something?
Craig Browne
Tuesday 19th May 2015 at 1:29 pm
Hello Graham, it would appear that the developer has been working on the basis of a letter of intent for the past two months, in the absence of confirmation of funding for the project. The new Parish Council is working hard to try and resolve this issue.
Fenton Simpson
Tuesday 19th May 2015 at 8:00 pm
It's probably best that no matter what you think of how the project had been handled so far by the last PC we get behind the new PC to get this project finally delivered.

I know the new PC has been burning the mid night oil to get to the bottom of what is outstanding on this project.

Let's look forward not back.