It was a fairly spirited affair at the Winter Gardens Management Committee (WGMC) meeting last night.
It became apparent early on from the audience members that incorrect rumours had been spread around town that the Winter Gardens was going to be closed down.
Hearing alarming news like this rightly brought residents of Ventnor to the meeting. With around 60 people attending it was the highest number of people that we can recall at a meeting.
Due to a technicality highlighted by ex-councillor Val Taylor (also Town Clerk of Sandown), the committee was advised to change the meeting from being an official WGMC meeting. It reopened as an informal public meeting with a report to the committee by its Chairman, Cllr David George.
We plan to have a fuller report of the rest of the meeting coming out soon, but we thought it would be of value to reprint the speech in full, so people can make their decisions based on what was said, not rumours.
Chairman’s report
I would like to make a brief report to members of the Committee.
It is clear that the Winter Gardens needs major renovation and refurbishment.
With no Manager in place, administration and event planning is extremely difficult. For the past few months I, along with Cllr Stubbings have attempted to give what assistance we can to the staff here, but this is only a temporary measure which for obvious reasons would not be practical to continue.
At a time when the town of Ventnor is on the way up, the Winter Gardens is failing to keep pace. Despite much recent improvement to the bar and restaurant areas, the building itself remains generally in poor condition.
The building is owned by the Isle of Wight Council and managed by the Ventnor Town Council through a management agreement, which I will ask Cllr Welsford to go into in more detail.
Cllr Welsford and I have recently attended two meetings with the Head of Property Services at County Hall. We have copies of the conditions survey of the building, which dates from 2003 and also a more recent survey undertaken in April 2009 which estimates the cost of renovating the building at over £600,000.
We have been informed categorically by the Head of Property Services that, apart from very limited amounts of repair work, no money will be made available for this building.
If this situation continues then the building will gradually deteriorate further and ultimately become unrepairable. The inevitable result would be closure.
I am convinced that the vast majority of the town’s population find this idea as unacceptable as I do.
Unless the building is made watertight, by substantial roof repairs, then there is no possibility of other refurbishment or renovation taking place. The cost of doing this is estimated by the Isle of Wight Council at £100,000. As I said earlier they have clearly stated that this will not be forthcoming due to budgetary restraint. And remember that repairing the roof is only the beginning.
The choices we have in how to move forward are I believe limited and they are these:
We can continue to patch up the building as best we can using the very limited resources we have at our disposal.
We can explore the possibility of a Community Asset Transfer. This could place the building into the stewardship of a dedicated Community Interest Company, which under the terms and conditions of the Isle of Wight Council’s Community Asset Transfer policy, could not be this town council.
The advantage of a Community Interest Company is that it would, in conjunction with the town council, be able to apply for the necessary finance to enable renovation and refurbishment to take place.
There are a number of funding bodies that could be approached, for example;
The Public Works Loan Board (whose function is to lend money from the National Loans Fund to local authorities and other prescribed bodies and to collect the repayments).
The Heritage Lottery Fund (which was set up by Parliament in 1994 to give grants to a wide range of projects involving the local, regional and national heritage of the United Kingdom).
We should also bear in mind the possibility of private or indeed commercial sponsorship.
To enable such a project to function effectively we would, in my opinion require a General manager in addition to our two full-time technicians and part time clerical assistant.
I feel it is generally agreed that any restoration of the building must be done sympathetically, where possible retaining the art deco theme.
Considerable work needs to be undertaken throughout the building.
The auditorium requires redesigning and upgrading to be a multi-functional space with an increased capacity to 500, which would give the building the ability to host conferences as well as theatre, concerts and community events. New foldaway telescopic seating would be required. Improved acoustics would be an essential element of this new design. New fire safety requirements would also come into force due to the increased capacity.
It is possibly worth considering an Architectural competition for this redesign. The Theatres Trust would I sure be happy to give advice.
Such a project cannot be achieved overnight. However if we are to preserve this building for future generations we simply cannot ignore the decisions that need to be made, or the work that needs to be done. The devil is, as always, in the detail, but without positive leadership from this council and a robust workable plan then this building faces a very uncertain future.
We must ask ourselves this question. Do we want the people of Ventnor, and the visitors who play such an important role in our economy, to have the use of an exciting, innovative building, that is the social and cultural heart of our community?
I am sure the answer is yes, and if it is, it’s now up to us to find a solution to the difficulties that we are confronted with.
Feature image copyright Graham “Chalkie” White
