Cash before community? Will top councillors vote for a £4.2 million 'windfall' to dump into its financial black hole or will the words of children and local people have some influence at the eleventh hour?
By Nub News editor Neil Speight: News and Comment. 15th Mar 2023
THURROCK Council's cabinet could decide the future of the Thameside complex at its meeting this evening (Wednesday, 15 March).
After more than a year of delays, indecision and a long and vociferous campaign from supporters of the complex, and particularly the Thameside Theatre, senior borough councillors will have to weigh and balance all the arguments.
But before them are six recommendations in a report prepared by the council's Corporate Director of Resources and Place Delivery, Mark Bradbury.
Despite statements in recent meetings by the council leader Cllr Mark Coxshall that the council is ready to listen to new proposals for the theatre, none of the recommendations consider 'Saving the Thameside Theatre'.
Quite whether the outpouring of public support for the theatre, which included a significant protest outside the most recent full council meeting, will have swayed councillors when they vote with their conscience this evening remains to be scene.
And campaigners have not given up.
The importance of the community is encapsulated in a video produced by the Lightnin and Drama group.
Though ostensibly based in Rainham, the group has worked with almost two decades of children from across Thurrock – hundreds of whom have performed at the Thameside in shows dating back over the past 17 years.
The words of the children involved with Lightnin and Thunder echo those of many Thurrock stage and dance schools and organisations like TOPS on Stage, who open their latest musical 'Betty Blue Eyes' at the theatre tomorrow.
Mr Bradbury, who has gained the reputation of an axeman carving his way through Thurrock's community assets as he prepares them for sale to fill the multi hundreds of millions of pounds black hole cause by the administration's catastrophically-failed 'borrow to invest policy' remains unmoved.
'Closure and disposal of the Thameside and its theatre' remains his mantra. The £140,000 plus senior executive recently brought into the borough to reshape its public facilities, has little or no attachment to history and community spirit in Thurrock.
His report on the Thameside can be encapsulated in his report.
He says: "The Thameside building is now over 50 years old and in recent years there has been a significant lack of investment in the building and its mechanical and electrical fixtures, and this has led to a backlog of investment necessary to continue effective operation and maintain statutory compliance.
"In July 2021 it was reported to Cabinet that the annual cost of running the building was more than £500,000 and the capital cost to refurbish the building and carry out all necessary repairs was circa £16 million. With the rise in inflation and construction costs in the intervening period the estimate is now between £18 and £20 million."
He puts that in black and white – yet at a corporate overview and scrutiny meeting last week he conceded that the figure was subjective and did not reflect the reality of alternative scenarios available at the complex.
In his report he outlines five options which reference two bids to take on the complex by interested parties. A partnership between Thurrock Lifestyle Solutions and Thurrock International Celebration of Culture submitted one, and Waltham International College another.
The options – according to Mr Bradbury, are:
- Close the theatre, relocate the library & museum, and sell the property with vacant possession
- Progress a lease to TLS/TICC
- Progress a lease to Waltham International College
- Retain control of the building, invest in eliminating the maintenance backlog and in the services based there and seek to lease out the remaining space
- Do nothing
Mr Bradbury recommends the only viable opportunity is 'option one' saying it 'offers the greatest certainty to make savings'.
His report, or at least what is available publicly, does not show the chase for cash that the council also appears to be set on. That, the council administration wants to keep a secret, describing it as 'commercially sensitive'.
Thurrock Nub News does not share that view and believes that the overwhelming publicly stated view of the Thurrock community is that the Thameside, his history and its role in Thurrock matters more than filling a cash pit created by the ineptitude, secrecy and contempt of the current administration and phalanx of dodgy officers.
The complex building has been valued at around £5.6 to £5.9 million in the freehold market. The council has already outlined plans to relocate the library and museum within the Thameside complex to its offices on New Road. The projected cost of that is around £1.2 million.
In short, the ruling administration's motivation for closing the Thameside complex is to make a quick profit of £4.2 million to help plug its cash gaps – with no proposal on the boards for a replacement theatre or central arts hub on the table.
Mr Bradbury's report is quite blunt about that.
He summarises: "Disposal of the property will deliver a significant net capital receipt and revenue savings to support the Council's financial recovery."
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