If this carbuncle owned by the council is looking shabby, the only people responsible for it are the council. Why have they not been doing repairs like any other owner of a building?
Instead they are begging for money again! 10 million is no small amount, but if they can't manage it why not sell it?
The public want the library where it is, but they have to suffer due to the council who would struggle to butter a slice of bread, let alone manage a theatre!
One of the things the council stated when closing the civic was that it needed a few million spending on it, Yet The Carbuncle Coed Pella Offices has a leak in the roof, who is going to pay to fix that? Or more repairs at the skip at Porth Eirias?
They have money when they need it, and can get money when they want it, but it is always about what they want and not what the public wants.
TWO Llandudno councillors say they will call in a decision to close the Mostyn Street library and relocate the service to Venue Cymru.
Conwy’s cabinet took the highly controversial decision last week, which will see the council target £10m of UK Government funds to regenerate the “tired” Venue Cymru into an arts centre – complete with a library extension.
The decision was made despite a public consultation finding 76% of 999 residents fearing moving the service would create access problems, with another 1,100 objectors signing a petition against the move.
Backed by Mostyn Estates, businesses in the town also worried closing the library building on Mostyn Street would result in a drop in footfall in the town centre.
But cabinet made the decision after a scrutiny committee had backed the move, on the condition a solid business case was supplied.
Now Llandudno backbench Conservative councillors Louise Emery and Harry Saville are attempting to call the decision in, arguing a proper business case is yet to be produced.
Cllr Emery claims she contacted the council’s head officers a week ago, requesting a business case, with the email copying in cabinet members heading the move.
But Cllr Emery says she is yet to see the documents and worries the cash-strapped council will struggle to pay for the maintenance of the new building once complete.
Cllr Emery also said scrutiny weren’t given the opportunity to scrutinise a list of costs presented on screen at the cabinet meeting, which were not made available to individual councillors at the time – or afterwards.
“We are trying to call this decision in because financial information was provided by the deputy leader, Cllr Emily Owen, and scrutiny members were not aware that this information was going to be presented at cabinet, and they had no previous opportunity to scrutinise the figures, which may have affected the decision on the previous Wednesday at the scrutiny meeting,” said Cllr Emery.
“I’m still waiting for the business case, the one they said is on a civil servant’s desk in Westminster (as part of the £10m funding application). I would like to see that in detail and be able to go through the figures and to reassure myself that this £10m project is the right thing to do for Conwy, regardless of the fact it has already been passed by scrutiny, who haven’t seen the business case.
“So I’m going to do my own due diligence as a Llandudno member, and if I find that the figures don’t stack up, then I’m going to ask questions. That’s my role.
“If you look at most capital projects and you look at industry standards, you do (set aside) between 2% and 4% of the value of the project for future maintenance. So let’s say some of that is renovating the old bit of Venue Cymru – most of it is on the new building – so you’re looking at a sizeable amount of money for revenue and maintenance costs, and I’m worried that some of that will fall on the library service.”
“It doesn’t feel that the cabinet have listened to not just the residents but their representatives, the Llandudno councillors; across party, they feel it is a bad decision, and we just don’t feel listened to, and that is really disheartening.”
She added: “We are going to try and call the decision in, hopefully today as we only have a limited number of days.”
A call-in is a process that can see a scrutiny committee revisit a previous decision, with councillors or groups of councillors having the right to request a committee call a matter in.
This means a decision can be re-debated if it’s found, for instance, that processes weren’t properly followed.
Conwy County Council was contacted for a comment.
Why not sell venue Cymru?
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