The email below, leaked to VentnorBlog, was this morning sent by Cllr Geoff Lumley to council Chief Exec, Steve Beynon and copied to all Isle of Wight councillors.
It’s in response to an email sent by Steve Beynon to all councillors last week about the Riverside Centre, which Geoff describes as having an “only partially accurate IW Council statement” attached to it.
It gives an insight into part of the disagreement between the council and the Riverside Centre, previously unexposed – including the Riverside’s claim of being owed £262,000 by the council, as well as other details.
Dear Steve
As you are aware I am the only IW Councillor who remains a trustee of the Riverside Centre, though obviously now in a personal capacity.
It is in that capacity that I was puzzled to receive your email of 4 October with attached only partially accurate IW Council statement. I have mulled over this statement for more than a week now, but now feel compelled to respond to you with a copy to all Members in the interests of accuracy.
The statement you have issued outlines various amounts that the Council believe the Riverside Centre owe them for rent and salary costs. What is entirely omitted from the statement are the monies that the Riverside genuinely believes are owed to it by the Council. These relate to transport costs for service users between January 2007 and March 2011 amounting to £262k (which the trustees believed had been offset against any outstanding rent after a meeting involving you and Cllr Mazillius last year); and long outstanding personal budgets for service users of the Riverside Centre, estimated to amount to £221k up to the current time – much more than the claimed salary costs.
As you know I regularly spoke to you about the brewing conflict with the Riverside Centre in the latter part of last year and early part of this. I did this as I strongly believe that the Riverside is a much-loved Island institution that the Council would be foolish to be seen to be bullying.
Sadly I believe we are now on the cusp of that perception. I hope and trust that this can be avoided either through mediation or arbitration.
Yours sincerely
Geoff Lumley
IW Councillor for Newport East
Image: raveller under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license
