Fant Hall

During the recent Fant Ward By-election the conservatives made several accusations against the liberal democrats stating that we would close Fant Hall and sell the land off for housing. They also made a counter claim stating that we were accusing them of wishing to do the same. Both statements are untrue.

The recent history regarding the hall is complicated and to understand it the actual situation needs telling.

In early 2008/09 Fant Hall was handed back to the Borough council by the community organisation operating it and who were operating at a loss. There was no provision in the council's budget for this unforeseen cost and while successful negotiations started almost immediately to hand the hall back to another community organisation it was realised that they too would be unlikely to be able to run it and break even and that the hall would therefore need to be subsidized by the council.

By co-incidence, in early 2009 the council was looking at the cost and provision of all the Borough's community halls and a report "Management of Lettable Halls" went to the cabinet on the 11th February 2009. This report recommended:

"that when Beechwood Hall is transferred from the developers to the council and a lease signed with the Community Hall, Fant Hall be closed and the community activities transferred to Beechwood Hall at an estimated saving of £6400"

This immediately set alarm bells ringing with all three Fant Ward councillors who, at the time, were Cllrs Nick Schnell and Steve Beerling for the Liberal Democrats and Cllr Stephen Payne for the Conservatives. Maidstone Borough Council has a Conservative administration and because of this Cllr Payne was able to speak to the leader of the council Chris Garland and the Cabinet member for Leisure and Culture prior to the actual cabinet meeting. As the opposition, the Lib Dem councillors prepared to speak at the meeting and use the normal scrutiny process to challenge the administration should the possible closure of Fant Hall and transfer of its facilities to Beechwood Hall be accepted. In other words all Fant Ward councillors, of both political persuasions were opposed to this proposal.

Having heard the arguments the Cabinet made the following decision:

"that Fant Hall be retained for a further period of 12 months and the usage monitored, alongside the usage of Beechwood Hall."

Two councillors, Cllr Batt (Lib dem)for Heath Ward and Cllr Mike Fitzgerald (Independent) for Boughton Monchelsea decided to 'call-in' for Scrutiny the entire report on several counts. The reasons in relation to Fant Hall were that while they were pleased with the Cabinet recommendation there was a failure to identify the growth item cost of maintaining the hall during the year and a failure to show how monitoring its use would provide answers as to how its medium and long-term use could be made viable. At this meeting it was pointed out that the usage of the hall was increasing but the new community organisation managing Fant Hall also complained about a lack of communication between itself and the officers at the Borough. Two recommendations directly relating to Fant Hall were made by the scrutiny committee:

• Appropriate officers arrange to meet with the management committee of Fant Hall and address how to improve communication and offer appropriate advice and support.
• Charitable status be pursued for those community halls which currently do not hold it, in order to achieve additional funding.

The current community organisation managing Fant Hall are now pursuing charitable status.

A further development has now taken place. A report "Review of Community Halls in the Borough" goes to the cabinet's October meeting. The recommendation is that the Cabinet:

"agree that a review of community halls in the borough be undertaken, in order to establish a strategy and framework for delivering community hall provision, that achieves the objectives of a balanced budget in respect of the council's funding of community halls and an appropriate and sustainable network of good quality community facilities across the borough based on equity of provision."

From the above it will be seen that Fant Hall has not definitely been saved by the Conservatives or anyone else, but it has had a stay of execution and all Fant councillors, now Steve Beerling and Fran Smith for the Lib Dems and Stephen Payne for the Conservatives are adamant that Fant Ward requires a community facility of its own within its own Ward boundaries.

What is most interesting from the latest officer report is the emphasis upon "good quality community facilities" because this is where there is a basic difference of opinion between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ward councillors. The conservatives have currently put their emphasis on retaining Fant Hall as it stands while we believe that the existing Fant Hall building does not adequately provide for the community needs of Fant Ward residents. If a way can be found to fund and build a new community facility to 21st century standards it should be pursued. To this end Councillor Beerling has been in discussion with borough officers for more than 18 months. One suggestion is that a possible site for a new build would be where the old pavilion in Gatland park currently stands. The Conservatives accuse us of wanting to build it on the Gatland Park playing fields which is a bit odd given that Cllr Payne himself in his leaflet of June 2008 stated that:

"we are looking for a capital grant with which to demolish the old pavilion. Exciting plans have been put forward to replace this with a new youth club and sports centre in future years."

The other accusation levelled at us is that Cllr Beerling wishes to sell off Fant Hall for housing. The truth is that there were some preliminary discussions as to whether a new community hall could be part funded by using the current Fant Hall site for sheltered housing for the elderly. Everything is now on hold until we know the outcome of the latest cabinet report however we wish to give you an assurance that:

Your Liberal Democrat councillors Steve Beerling and Fran Smith will fight to retain the existing Fant Hall until such time as a new community centre opens within the Ward. Given the current economic situation this is likely to be a long time coming.

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