On Monday evening at the Annual Ventnor Town Council (VTC) meeting, Town Cllr Debby Robinson’s year as Mayor of Ventnor came to an close. As we have done in previous years, below is the Mayor’s report for 2010/11. Debby was superseded by Steve Stubbings (more to come on that shortly). Ed
My year as Mayor has been extremely ‘interesting’, largely in the Chinese sense. Positive change and innovation can sometimes have negative side effects.
To paraphrase an old joke, “How many Ventnorians does it take to change a light bulb?”
To which the punchline is – “Change?”
Thanks to clerk
For much of the year VTC has been a council of just five members – the full compliment being 11 and we are still short of three. As volunteers, that’s an awful lot of work for each individual and, here I must say that we couldn’t have done it without David Bartlett, the Town Clerk who joined us this year. Thank you David.
When he took on the temp role of Winter Gardens (WG) manager, his first task was to analyse the financial situation in detail. This was a Herculean task with patchy or non-existent record keeping by the previous incumbents.
The bottom line was that the WG was haemorrhaging money, town’s money, and had been doing so for most of its life.
Town Council could no longer take financial risk
We investigated every possible avenue to provide a future for the WG but in the end we knew that we couldn’t ask the people of Ventnor to subsidise the place any longer. The WG should never have been taken on by VTC in the first place.
It’s not a Town Council’s remit to run a large, complicated business, especially not one in an ailing building, victim of years of under spend. Businesses need to take financial risks but for a Council to do this, with taxpayer’s money, it would be illegal.
With the very greatest reluctance, most of all from me personally, we took the right decision – to close the WG. Now we look forward to new ownership in the future.
Many positive developments
Despite the WG crisis and the fall out from the drastic County Council cuts taking up an inordinate amount of our time there have been many positive developments this year.
We now have a properly functioning website, regularly updated with Town Council, meetings and minutes and offering a wide variety of information about Ventnor.
For those who aren’t able to access this our Town Clerk and his very able assistant, Alison, are now working out of the Coastal Centre on Dudley Road and are always at the end of a phone line. Unfortunately BT were unable to transfer the old numbers to the new office but the updated contact details may be found on the website.
Official Green Town
Having first gone to a Green Towns meeting back in September last year, I’m really excited that Ventnor has now become an official Green Town with a steering group about to get stuck in.
In fact the next meeting is on Wednesday evening (tonight) at the library and all are welcome.
Rotting seaweed sorted
This year has also seen a proper solution to the rotting seaweed situation in the Haven. It was found that the stuff was collecting in a deep trough in the middle of the haven and previous attempts to remove it were just taking the top layer away.
Contractors have now dug much deeper than had been the case, removing some 1,000 tons of goop in the last few months.
Another Blue Flag for Ventnor
Another excellent bit of news is that Ventnor beach will retain its Blue Flag, despite County cutting its lifeguards.
VTC will be turning the hut into a First Aid Point with one full time member of staff and a rota of volunteers. Here I must thank Cllr Jim Toogood for the huge amount of work he has put in.
A pleasure to work with fellow councillors
Finally, I must say how different this year has been from my previous ones on VTC. In stark contrast, it has been a genuine pleasure to work with a team of councillors who have taken on the responsibility for no other reason than their concern for and commitment to the people of Ventnor.
Thank you all very, very much!
