News

LEISUREDROME RUMPUS AS PARISH COUNCIL WITHDRAW LEASE OFFER

Dear Ed

I have been involved with a charity established in October 2003 to provide sport and recreation facilities in the village, with children and young people in mind, by leasing the Spitfire Leisuredrome building from the Hawkinge Parish Council for a period of 75years.

Our charity is known as the Hawkinge Youth and Community Sports Council and presently includes just a small number of trustees dedicated to getting the project started after which leaders, coaches, and representative members of the sports and youth clubs using the premises would have the opportunity to serve o­n a management committee.

We first met with the Parish Council to discuss the question of our leasing the Spitfire Leisuredrome in January 2004 following which we appointed solicitors (funded by the HPC)to act o­n our behalf and at the end of May a draft lease document was received by us.

Since that time we have attempted to negotitiate the terms of the lease with the Parish Council but, although in some matters such as structural alterations the lease terms contradicted what had been agreed between us earlier, the Parish Council have made no attempt to accommodate our concerns, so we finally agreed to accept all of the terms in the belief  that o­nce the charity occupies the premises and proves its worth the HPC might be more sympathetic to our needs.

Communication with the HPC through our solicitors and theirs has been tiresome and protracted. With the HPC meeting just o­nce a month situations have inevitably occurred whereby their requests or our responses have prevented regular coherent reporting o­n our progress.

We had hoped to have occupied the premises some time ago but negotiations, and more recently the necessary inquiries and searches undertaken by our solicitors at our expenses have delayed matters further.

During this time we have prepared plans for the conversion (non-structural) of the premises so as to maximise available space, to modify and improve so as to provide a welcoming facility in which all of the local population may take a pride. We have sought and gained funds for this purpose.

The Kent Community Foundation, Kent County Council, and the Tory Family Foundation, have between them made it possible for us to finance the provision of all the sports equipment needed to get started, carry out essential modifications and initital improvements, and finance the recurrent running costs during the setting up period. Additionally a sponsor has been found to pay for a state of the art overhead heating system suitable for a sports hall.

On 5th May our solicitors wrote to advise the Parish Council that our enquiries were complete and we had anticipated a positive responses. Instead we learned of a decision made at their 11th May meeting to withdraw the offer of a lease o­n the Spitfire Leisuredrome to our charity which we found incomprehensible, made without warning at this late stage of proceedings.

I am bringing this matter to your attention in the hope that there may be villagers in touch with your website who have concerns about the provision of facilities for children and young people and may wish to support an effort to persuade the Parish Council to change their recent decision regarding the Spitfire Leisuredrome and it's lease to ourselves. We are told that there is no hidden agenda - no plans to demolish the building to provide further housing but the reasons we have been given for their change of heart are spurious to our mind.

The Hawkinge Partnership has been set up in recent times to help improve the quality of life for villagers and o­ne of the subjects it is researching is the provision of facilities for children and young people. Our charity has been working with the Partnership o­n the Youth Forum and has been viewed as a very positive potential contributor to what is so desperately needed by the youngsters.

The Hawkinge Parish Council meet again o­n 25th May (Annual Parish Meeting) and 8th June (Parish Council Meeting) when we are hopeful villagers, especially concerned parents, will turn out in force to protest the Council's decision and persuade them to reconsider.

Patrick Lawrence