Bath & North East Somerset Cabinet Meeting 14 November 2012
The Future of the Victoria Hall - Amanda Leon
Radstock Action Group welcomes the paper regarding the future of the Victoria Hall and is very pleased that the Council intends to retain the building in public and community use for the benefit of the town. We entirely agree that ‘the building has the potential to provide a sustainable focus to the town centre, to the benefit of the local community’ (4.1).
We look forward to the emergence of a welcoming, fully accessible and flexible space that the town will feel proud of. We offer the following points for further consideration, but not in any particular order.
1. Existing level of income (£5,000) as stated in 3.7 is clearly much lower than could have been achieved by appropriate hire charges and proper promotion of the Hall (5.13). We hope that it will be possible to meet at least part of the Revenue Shortfall by having a responsible marketing and letting policy in the future.
2. We accept that the transfer of the Library as detailed in 5.4 is a positive step forward but we ask B&NES to retain snooker use, since this was at the heart of the aims of the building as developed and it still provides a well-used facility for a wide range of users including young people. We note the problems that would need to be addressed, as outlined in 9.6. We suggest that it might be possible to redevelop the ground floor space in the Caretaker’s House since this would avoid the inevitable costs of moving the tables upstairs. One option would then be to use the other space in the Caretaker’s House as we suggest in Point 4, below.
3. The release of the House should be a last resort since, once the rest of the building starts to gain local support, it seems highly probable that more accommodation will be required than can be provided by the remaining space. In particular, we would urge the Council to consider the importance of having a proper tourist promotion facility plus possible small work spaces which could be rented at hourly, daily or weekly rates and would offer full ‘IT suite’ facilities enabling users to have wifi access and the means for making presentations – this would address the funding shortfall referred to in 5.15 and elsewhere. We note that the sale of the house might generate £95,000 but we urge B&NES to consider further fund-raising options and extended community support (for example, from people contributing time to the running of the additional facilities which would become available) prior to making a final decision. Youth activities in the town are short of space, since the relocation of Children’s Services. The closeness of the Youth Hub means that they could easily use space in the Caretaker’s House for their very successful operations..
4. In view of the very successful use of the Hall for dance classes and performance, we urge B&NES to ensure that the floor in any lettable space is suitable for physical activity and, while we recognize that a fully sprung floor may well be very expensive, we request that full professional advice is sought on the best affordable option.
5. We urge the Council to ensure that a hearing support system is built into every part of the building.
6. We note that there appear to be no shower room facilities mentioned in 5.6 under meeting/changing room and ask that this is looked into since people undertaking physical activities in the hall often require shower facilities afterwards.
7. We urge the Council to ensure that the upstairs room(s) can be readily divided up into smaller units by the use of sliding/folding doors between them. This could increase income on evenings where two or more smaller groups wish to use the facilities.
Finally, B&NES is to be congratulated for consulting with local people and taking note creatively of their interests, priorities and concerns. We look forward to being a part of the future of our key civic building.