Thursday’s by-election in Southborough North followed the usual voting patterns, with the Conservatives holding the seat with 60% of the vote – identical to the share that they achieved in a similar by-election in the same seat three years ago.

The result appeared to represent the endorsement the Council wanted for its plans to replace all the Town’s public buildings. However, the chilly damp weather resulted in a low turnout of just 23% – half that of the by-election three years ago that was held in warmer summer weather.

One Conservative Councillor immediately commented that spending Council funds on the February by-election was “a disgraceful waste of public money.” The winning Conservative secured the support of just 14 % of those who could have voted in Southborough North.

The February 9th 2017 by-election result was:

There were 5 rejected ballot papers: one multiple vote and 4 blank.

Mr Kinghorn is pictured below after his win in the centre with Cllr Peter Oakford on the left of picture and the current Southborough mayor, Cllr David Elliot on the right.

All the passionate arguments on both sides of the Hub debate over the past year would seem to have made little impact on the wider electorate.  The percentage support for the Conservatives was identical to the Southborough North by-election in May 2014, which saw the election of Bill LeGrys (Result below). His resignation over council “infighting” in the debates over the Southborough Hub led to the by-election.

Although the Conservatives obtained 400 fewer votes this time than this comparable by-election before the demolition of the Royal Victoria Hall was proposed, the opposition also lost 267 votes from that 2014 vote.

The Liberal Democrat candidate this time, Allen Lear, told voters he had signed the petition, “Southborough Deserves Better”, demanding a rethink of the Hub plans:

http://bit.ly/2eDPwmR

However, the Liberal Democrat campaign leaflet was equivocal saying: “Allen has supported past campaigns to keep the Royal Victoria Hall (pictured below) as part of the Hub development. He now feels the scheme should proceed as planned.”

The victorious Conservative candidate, Ian Kinghorn, had – as vice-Chairman of the Southborough Society – spoken in person at the crucial planning meeting to help persuade the planning committee to approve the demolition of the Royal Victoria Hall, even though the 100 year-old theatre was recently given the official status of a “heritage asset”.

Mr Kinghorn stated in his election leaflet: “I am pleased that through the tireless efforts of local Conservatives we now have the opportunity to give the residents of Southborough an all-inclusive multi-functional community facility (pictured above)..which will put the heart back into our community and will be something that we and future generations can be proud of.”

Meanwhile, the Conservative Councillor Nasir Jamil posted on Facebook after the result: “Apparently the Lib Dem Town Council candidate was away on holiday for part of the election campaign and he didn’t bother to turn up for the count. This by election did not need to be called as we could have co-opted Ian Kinghorn onto the town council by agreement. The Lib Dem’s called the by election which has cost the Town Council £5,000 which would have been better spent on the Southborough Hub. Disgraceful waste of public money…”

Also on Facebook, Labour’s Councillor Jason Reeves responded saying: “I thought that democracy applied to Southborough Town Council, and sometimes that means asking the people who they want to represent them. Whether the candidate is on holiday or not is irrelevant as perhaps they made plans before the election was called…If you are worried about wasting money, then why not focus on the wasteful council spending that you have some say over?”

Trevor Poile of the Liberal Democrats commented: “It is disappointing not to win but our share of the vote held up at just under 40% compared to the by-election in 2015”.

Conservatives in Southborough will be hoping for a ringing endorsement from voters for their far-reaching plans for the Southborough Hub development when polls open on Thursday, but there are signs that the Liberal Democrats may have a chance of winning the seat.

The by-election vote in the Southborough North seat is happening because the Conservative Bill Legrys resigned his seat late last year, saying he was “fed up” with the infighting in the council over the decision to replace all of the Town’s public buildings.

The Conservatives would normally regard the seat as safe territory, but the opposition to the design of the new Hub (shown below) and the planned demolition of the much loved “heritage asset” Royal Victoria Hall has made the vote a fascinating contest.

Southborough News went door-to-door on Saturday and Sunday to try to assess opinion and still found little evidence of support for the new Hub designs proposed by the Conservatives.  When 38 people were asked if they approved of the current Hub design including the demolition of the RVH, the results were:  Approve 4, Disapprove 22, Don’t Know 12.

Southborough News found 6 Conservative supporters, 19 Liberal Democrat supporters, while 19 people said they “didn’t know”, suggesting many people are still to be persuaded how they should use their vote on Thursday.

Southborough News has approached both the Liberal Democrat Candidate, Allen Lear, and the Conservative candidate, Ian Kinghorn, for an interview, but neither has responded.

Many voters on Saturday expressed their surprise that funds were not being spent on refurbishing the Royal Victoria Hall (shown above in a photo from the 1970s before the original frontage was removed) and a few said they were regular Conservative voters who would switch to Liberal Democrat as a protest at the way the development was progressing.

The Conservatives say their plan will deliver a brand new Community Hall, a cafe combined with a new library and a new medical centre and it will become a new “heart” for the community. The current designs are opposed by Labour and the arguments of both sides are detailed in past posts and videos on this blog. Key articles are listed here:

“Superb” Royal Victoria Hall has “better acoustics than any theatre I have played in”

Vibrant Focal Point or Plastic Lunch Box?

Backstage Pictures of Victorian Features that Remain in Royal Victoria Hall

Southborough Society Backs Demolition of Victoria Hall

Interview with leading Southborough Conservative, Cllr Peter Oakford

Interview with Head of Labour Group in Southborough, Cllr Nick Blackwell

Video: Are Any of the Walls of the Royal Victoria Hall Collapsing?

In a comment posted on Southborough News late last year, Julie Levack (also known as actress and TV presenter Julie Kirvan) who’s the owner of Southborough’s Grade II listed Georgian Country House, Holden House (shown below) stated: “The Royal Victoria Hall is a beautiful theatre in a prominent position that should be saved for future generations. If it is, as suggested, more cost effective to restore than rebuild I can’t understand why this option is not being considered.”

Mrs Levack continued: “As the owner of a large historic property in Southborough which is not only ‘older’ but was in a ‘far worse state of repair’ than the theatre having been derelict for years, I have proven that restoration of our town’s historical sites is not only possible but is important for the future generations of our town. I personally felt a huge weight of support from locals to restore Holden House and felt a huge responsibility to do it properly as the Community deserved it”.

She concluded: “How many towns have lost buildings of historical value to ‘ugly modern box buildings’ which 20 years later look dated and everyone regrets losing the original. I understand some opinions to develop areas of the town and to improve much needed facilities but feel that the ‘Theatre’ should be restored back to her former glory. The pictures I have seen of The Hub are thoroughly un-impressive and do not sit architecturally with the rest of the High Street and I feel any design of new buildings in that vicinity should be sympathetic to their surroundings”.

In the last comparable Town by-election vote in Southborough North in May 2014, the Conservatives polled 60 % of the votes.

In the same geographic constituency eighteen months ago, the Liberal Democrat was defeated by just 49 votes in a Borough Council vote, when UKIP were also standing.

Only a third of the Southborough area will be involved in the by-election.  The area of the Southborough North constituency is shown below.

Conservatives in Southborough have denied that there is any financial risk to the Council after the Council agreed to spend £100,000 from reserves to speed up the demolition of the Royal Victoria Hall and the Council offices.

Speaking at last month’s full Council meeting that voted to approve the accelerated demolition plan, Cllr Peter Oakford of the Conservatives revealed that up to one million pounds would soon be available to the Council from the sale of the Speldhurst Road allotment site.

Southborough’s Labour group strongly opposed the quick demolition and says the £1million windfall from the allotment land sale should have been used to refurbish the existing Victorian theatre.

The £100,000″forward funding” is allowing demolition of the Town’s newly designated “Heritage Asset” (pictured above in Friday’s snow) before any money has been raised from developers. The flattening of the site is expected to begin in March.

It is understood that tenders have already gone out for demolition companies to bid for the job. The historic recording of the Royal Victoria Hall, which was opened in 1900, has already been completed. It was arranged by Kent County Council officers.

Cllr Oakford said the Council would receive the money from the sale of the Speldhurst allotments next year and that would help bolster the finances allowing the “forward funding” which means building work on the Hub could start in the spring and be well underway before any bad weather next winter.

But Labour’s Cllr Nick Blackwell said: “The Labour Group has always proposed that the funds from the sale of the Speldhurst allotment land could have gone into conserving and modernising the Royal Victoria Hall. We could have had the best of both worlds: an adaptable and fit-for-purpose RVH and no loss to our valuable green spaces.”

During the December Council meeting, Cllr Oakford was asked if demolishing the existing Council facilities was prudent before the revenue from the sale of the Ridgewaye playing field land was known. His reply at the meeting was recorded by Southborough News and is provided here:

The Southborough Council staff have been given until the end of February to move out but it has not been decided yet where they will go.  They have been offered a very small space at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.

While the Town Council staff currently have 55 square metres of space, the only offer they have is to move into a 15 square metre “attic” room in the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council offices.

Efforts are still being made to find a suitable site in Southborough for the 18 months the council will be homeless before the new Hub is built.

In its role managing the cemetery, Southborough Council staff have to speak to families who have lost relatives and it is highly undesirable for those families to have to travel to Tunbridge Wells to find the Town Council in a room not accessible by a lift.

Meanwhile, voters in the north of Southborough will have a chance to give their verdict on Conservative Party’s Hub development plans at a by-election on February 9th.

The Conservative Candidate is to be Ian Kinghorn, who spoke strongly in favour of the current Hub scheme at the key planning committee meeting in his role as vice-Chairman of the Southborough Society. He told the planners that the Southborough Society wanted the Royal Victoria Hall demolition to continue. Mr Kinghorn lives in West Park Avenue in Southborough.

Labour have chosen not to field a candidate, but Mr Kinghorn (pictured in the green and black shirt in the youtube video above) will be opposed by the Liberal Democrats.  The LibDem candidate is Allen David Lear of Ruscombe Close in Southborough.

A petition last year signed by 1,300 local people (800 from Southborough) argued that the demolition of the Royal Victoria Hall was not the right development option.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/southborough-deserves-better-reject-the-hub-plans

The Conservatives say the majority of Southborough’s 8,400 electorate approve of the demolition. In his election leaflet, Mr Kinghorn says the Hub will be renamed before it opens.

In his statement on the Council finances last month (see youtube video above), Cllr Peter Oakford said: “We [Southborough Town Council] will “forward fund” the £100,000 for the site clearance as a loan. That will come back 3 or 4 months into next year. We also have the sale of Speldhurst Road allotments going through next year, which will bring in another £750,000 to a million pounds into this council. Plus – at the end of the project – we have the £70,000 that we spent [initially on the Hub project] coming back into the Council.”

Cllr Oakford continued: “There is not a financial risk to this. Our finances are fine.  The argument about Southborough pre-funding £100,000: Kent County Council have pre-funded well over a million pounds to date on this project. So their risk is huge compared to ours. They have bought the Tesco’s land. They are completing on the Lloyds’ land [Lloyd’s back garden, not Lloyd’s building]. They have put a lot more money in for surveys etc that are going on….We are less than 10 per cent.”

Cllr Oakford concluded: “It’s the right thing to do. It gets us a head start. It means we can start building the Hub in the spring and the summer months as opposed to the late summer/winter when you get delays.  It will start the project well and may give us a really good boost.”

Labour’s Nick Blackwell stated: “We are still we waiting to get sight of the finances of the project despite repeated requests. And from the recent comments of Cllrs Oakford and Lester it would seem the public will now only get a basic community hall. Any enhancements to the specification will be through the sale of the Former Speldhurst Road allotments site. This is after the continual mantra of the Conservative group that the project has to be self funding. They seem intent on selling off every asset STC owns to satisfy their vanity project.”

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Southborough News. If you take a walk to Southborough Common today, then you might see this Christmas tree – spontaneously decorated by local residents!

A plan to hasten the flattening of Southborough Town Council offices and Royal Victoria Hall was passed 10 to 6 in a full council meeting on Thursday evening.

£100,000 will be lent by the Town Council from its reserves to Kent County Council to fund demolition to clear the site by the spring.

The plan was strongly opposed by the six opposition councillors who say that the sale of the land on the Ridgewaye fields should be agreed before demolition and redevelopment starts, but they were outvoted by the 10 Conservatives who attended.

One long standing supporter of keeping the Royal Victoria Hall, Lee Ireland, had called for opponents of the current Hub scheme to go to the council offices and make their feelings known and a dozen members of the public attended but no one spoke in the public session.

Meanwhile, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has confirmed the election timetable for the by-election in North Ward following the unexpected resignation of Conservative councillor Bill LeGrys:
Thu 5 Jan: Notice of Election published
4pm Fri 13 Jan: Deadline for Nominations
Mon 16 Jan: Names of candidates published
Thu 9 Feb: Election held

Only two people are needed to nominate a candidate. There is still plenty of time for residents to obtain postal votes if they think they will not be able to reach the polling station on Thursday 9th February.

Polling cards will be sent out to residents of the ward, which is one of the 3 wards that cover Southborough and High Brooms Town Council. The total cost to the rate payers of the town is thought to be around £ 5,000.

To emphasise this clearly, there is no vote in 2/3 of the Southborough Town Council area, just the North.

The following motion was approved at Thursday’s meeting having been put forward by the Conservative deputy of Southborough Town Council, Councillor Glenn Lester: 
“That Southborough Town Council (STC) forward fund £100k to Kent County Council (KCC) in order to assist in progressing the Southborough Hub development including site clearance, subject to confirmation from KCC that the funds will be paid back following the successful disposal of the residential land.

Furthermore that STC council services be re-located based on the Collaboration Agreement as a matter of priority and that the representative of the board and the town clerk be given delegated authority to resolve any other matters to ensure that these outcomes are deliverable”

The following motion was put forward by Labour’s Councillor Blackwell, but rejected:

“That this council implements the advice of the Theatres Trust and agrees to undertake an Advisory Review of the Southborough Hub development conducted by leading professionals in the field. It agrees to undertake this process before moving to RIBA Stage 4 in order to achieve the best possible outcome for the new theatre and shared-space community buildings.”

More details of the meeting and video will be posted after Christmas. No plan has been agreed on what will happen to council staff, services or meetings after February when demolition starts but various options are being considered.

Planning permission will be formally granted at the end of January when final legal agreements on developer contributions are expected to be drawn up.

A recording exercise of features in the Royal Victoria Hall is expected to happen in January, which was one of the planning conditions. It will be done under guidelines set by Historic England.

The Southborough Hub Planning Application has been approved by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid, despite the objections of Sport England to the loss of recreation space.

The decision of Mr Javid (pictured below) was expected as central government generally only intervenes in cases of “national significance”. Mr Javid could have overruled the local planning authority and “called in” the application for it to be examined by an independent public inquiry .

It is understood that the outright objections from Sport England and the Football Association to the current Hub scheme remained and were considered by the central government planning casework officer, but their objections were not considered important enough to warrant a “call in.”

A letter sent by Karen Partridge, a Planning Manager at the Department for Communities and Local Government to the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council  dated 19th December says:

“I refer to your email of 29 November referring to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (“The Secretary of State”) an application for planning permission for the above development. The Secretary of State has carefully considered the case against call-in policy, as set out in the Written Ministerial Statement by Nick Boles on 26 October 2012. The policy makes it clear that the power to call in a case will only be used very selectively.”

The statement continues: “The Government is committed to give more power to councils and communities to make their own decisions on planning issues, and believes planning decisions should be made at the local level wherever possible. In deciding whether to call in the application, the Secretary of State has considered his policy on calling in planning applications. This policy gives examples of the types of issues which may lead him to conclude, in his opinion that applications should be called in. The Secretary of State has decided, having had regard to this policy, not to call in the application. He is content that the application should be determined by the local planning authority.

It ends: “In considering whether to exercise the discretion to call in the application, the Secretary of State has not considered the matter of whether the application is EIA Development for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011. The local planning authority responsible for determining these applications remains the relevant authority responsible for considering whether these Regulations apply to these proposed developments and, if so, for ensuring that the requirements of the Regulations are complied with.”

Voters in the north of Southborough will have a chance to give their verdict on the ruling Conservative Party’s plans for  a modern “Hub” building in the town in a by-election, which is likely to be held on February 9th.

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrat on Southborough Town Council, Trevor Poile, has told Southborough News it is “outrageous” that councillors have not been able to view the business plan for the Hub to allow them to assess independently if the Hub scheme is workable.

The by-election was triggered by Cllr Poile (pictured below) who submitted the necessary ten signatures for a public election.  Sometimes councillors are replaced by agreement among existing councillors without a public vote if a single seat suddenly becomes vacant.

The vote will only take place in the Southborough North ward, which is usually a Conservative stronghold. The seat became vacant after the resignation of Councillor Bill LeGrys three weeks ago. Mr LeGrys said he was leaving as he was fed up with the infighting in the council over the proposed Southborough Hub.

It is not clear when nominations close for candidates. The election is organised by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, who’s election team couldn’t be contacted as they were “away for training” for three days.

The Southborough Hub scheme (artist’s impression above) remains hugely controversial. It is still being opposed by Sport England due to the loss of playing field space, while many local people maintain any new development should have been designed around the existing Royal Victoria Hall.

A petition recently signed by 1,300 people wanted the old Hall retained (pictured below before its frontage was overhauled in 1977), but was ignored by planning committee in Tunbridge Wells. The application is now being considered by central government.

Cllr Poile says he personally believes in keeping the Hall, although the view of the Liberal Democrat who will be standing in the forthcoming by-election may not be the same. The name of the Liberal Democrat candidate may not be revealed until nominations close.

A council meeting on Thursday 22nd December is expected to discuss a controversial Conservative plan to borrow £ 100,000 to fund immediate demolition of the Royal Victoria Hall and the existing council offices. The motion will be strongly opposed by Cllr Poile and the five Labour members.

Mr Poile told Southborough News: “I’d like to keep the Hall, but if the Hall has to be demolished I would want the land sale to go through first, so you have got the money to fund the demolition”.

He continued: “What worries me is if you demolish the Hall and the council offices first, and then there is some sort of delay in implementing the planning application or selling the land or whatever, then you have unnecessarily made the town council homeless for a longer period than is necessary.”

Trevor Poile also believes it is wrong that only two people on Southborough Town Council, the Conservatives Glenn Lester and Peter Oakford, have had access to the detailed business plan for the Hub. Several Conservative councillors have also expressed their disappointment at the secrecy involved.

Cllr Poile said: “The councillors haven’t been shown the figures in the business plan. While I can understand it has to be kept confidential from the general public, as a town councillor, I have not been shown the business plan with the figures in it. I think it is outrageous that we are making decisions based on a business plan with no figures in.”

Cllr Oakford (pictured above), the Conservative who negotiated the Hub plan between all the landowners involved, told Southborough News last month that the numbers in the business plan had to be kept confidential in order to get the best offers for the land.

Cllr Oakford said: “From day one, this project has to be self-financing through the sale of the piece of land that’s going to be used for residential. If we say it is going to cost X to build the Hub, whoever is going to buy that land, knows exactly how much money we need and that will limit the offers that are placed on that piece of land. So I am sure people understand that we don’t want to say that the Hub is going to cost X, because the value of the land is X”.

He continued: “What we want to do is maximise the value of the land.  The more money that we get from the land, the more enhancements we can put into the Hub as we build it. So that’s the reason that – at this moment in time – there is commercial sensitivity around the overall construction costs.”

I have just posted a video update to youtube (click below) recapping the key debate over whether the Royal Victoria Hall should be refurbished or demolished, as part of the development plans.

Cllr Peter Oakford insists an actual wall of the RVH is “bowed”, making a new build the only option. Meanwhile Cllr Nick Blackwell says surveyors’ reports show the bowed wall in question to be definitely not part of the RVH.

The same video was published to Facebook on the New Old Tunbridge Wells Photos page.

Labour’s Cllr Nick Blackwell has said the Conservative promises to quickly eliminate all council taxpayer subsidies to the planned new theatre in Southborough are “very unrealistic”.

Mr Blackwell also says the Conservatives leaders have: “gone out of their way to pretty much alienate and hack off everybody who has ever been associated with the Royal Victoria Hall”, which would also hinder any efforts to set up a volunteer trust to run productions in the future.

Here is the remainder of the interview transcript with Mr Blackwell (below), with a link to listen to the audio at the end.

Q: The plan is for the Assembly Hall in Tunbridge Wells to provide professional technical expertise for this new Hall. Do you think, given that they are the professionals, that they will actually make the Hall busier, more viable than it was before?

A: Well, it remains to be seen because of course we read about these things in the Courier. We get them second and third hand. So, we haven’t seen exactly how that’s going to operate. The thing to remember is that you don’t make money from local arts. You know if you look at the Assembly Hall, it has a massive subsidy. I think it is about £ 225,000 a year of subsidy. Trinity £ 50,000.

Q: Cllr Oakford said he would be able to organise it so there would be no subsidy after 3 years.

A: I think if he could do that, he could probably package it and sell it to every arts organisation in the country. I think it’s very unrealistic. You are going to have to subsidise the arts. The Royal Victoria Hall – yes was subsidised – but it provided a service for the people of Southborough. We are not out to make a profit. We don’t want to be irresponsible with the tax payers money, but whether it is a bowls club or a theatre, these are local amenities that are run for the benefit of the community of Southborough.

FROM 50520 (Second Tape at 1’30”)

Q: Can Cllr Oakford get the volunteers who used to work on the Victoria Hall involved in this new professional theatre?

A: Well they have gone out of their way to pretty much alienate and hack off everybody who has ever been associated with the Royal Victoria Hall. We had a fantastic base of volunteers, experts – some of them with national and international expertise – who were willing to give up their time and energy to work with the Hall and the local community and over a period of 18 months, they have managed to upset pretty much everybody. And you can see that from the letters that were written in from the planning application and the representations that were made to the Town Council. So if they are hoping to run a Trust model (after the 3 years with the Assembly Hall in charge), where are these people going to come from? Because they have really burnt all their bridges.

Q: What about the design of the new building? Cllr Oakford did say to me that he quite liked red brick and perhaps that could be part of the design but he would leave it to the experts at KCC. What do you think of the designs as they stand?

A: I think at the moment, they look cheap and nasty. It is one of those “off the peg” public sector builds that you can see right across the country. I can see it is cheap, but does it relate to Southborough? Does it have anything to do with our locality? It is the kind of building that you see popping up all over the place from Milton Keynes to South Croydon. It’s going to look like what it costs to build. And this is a cheap build and it will look like it.

Q: So, what do you hope will happen next?

A: I hope that people will start to listen. People will start to respond. People start to be a little more accommodating. Perhaps I hold out a bit of hope because we have been told there is another architect who has brought on for the last part of the project. I think everybody is suitably unimpressed with what has been offered up from Pick Everard…. They still have a chance to turn this around, but they have got to start listening to people and actually making changes. If they just carry on with this headstrong – we’re just going to ignore you – demolish the Hall prematurely, we’re not going to get anywhere.

Q: Could they come up with a scheme that kept the Hall but also delivered the Hub benefits of the other community buildings?

A: Of course they could. But there has got to be a will on the part of the project board to actually listen and work with the people in the town. I am sure this is not a project that is beyond the wit of a group of architects and town planners. I know when we had the original brief from Allies Morrison, they put forward some excellent suggestions about incorporating the historical with the modern and making them work sympathetically. And I think a lot of people in the town were really energised and excited by that. That was within the last 3 years. They started the project and then they moved off the scene when KCC came in. We got Pick Everard and we’ve got this thing that looks like a pre-fabricated industrial unit. Not good.

The Head of the Labour Party group on Southborough Town Council, Nick Blackwell, has  said the Royal Victoria Hall is “fit for purpose” and he rejected the argument made by the Conservatives that refurbishing it would not be viable.

Mr Blackwell, who’s a former Town mayor, said that Cllr Oakford of the Conservatives was “categorically wrong” when he told Southborough News last week that a wall that was part of the Royal Victoria Hall was “bowed” and therefore the building would cost too much to save.

Mr Blackwell insists the designs for the new community facilities could still incorporate the Royal Victoria Hall. Mr Blackwell said the Hall: “hasn’t got any structural issues. It just seems a much better idea to work with an existing asset, rather than to demolish it and start again”.

Mr Blackwell (pictured below) gave an extended interview to Southborough News in response to the detailed account published last week that spelt out the Hub project team’s vision of the development.

Listen to the first ten minutes of  Cllr Blackwell’s interview by clicking this arrow below or else read the full transcript further down:

Q: Cllr Oakford said to me that he was now 100% confident that the Hub as currently designed with the polycarbonate cladding and the end of the Victoria Hall WILL happen. Do you agree? Is he right?

A: I’m not sure how he can be that confident. Obviously, Tunbridge Wells (Planning Authority) have said that they support the application but the statutory bodies – the statutory consultees – Sports England, have said they are very unhappy. And it’s not just the loss of playing fields, it’s the reprovision, it is the levelling off, it’s the retaining walls, it’s the changing rooms that don’t meet FA regulations. There’s a whole list of things as long as your arm that they are unhappy about.

There’s also the Theatres Trust, who I have spoken to in the last few days, and they’re very unhappy about the way that they perceive that they have been ignored and that their comments were misconstrued to the planning committee. They have also written in to express their dismay at the way things have been handled. So, it could yet go to the Secretary of State. I know it is a slim, outside chance.

And then we’ve got the finances. We haven’t got any. We don’t know what it’s going to cost. We don’t know where the money is coming from. We’ve seen a bit of the risk register. We only got it in our last meeting. But one of the things that is a risk is the possible 20% devaluation in the land values. Now, if we get 20% less money than we are expecting for this project, we are definitely going to need to cut our cloth accordingly.

Q: That’s because of the BREXIT vote?

A: Exactly. And this might seem incredible to people who don’t come along to the council meetings, but none of the councillors – apart from Cllr Oakford and Cllr Lester – have even seen the figures. We are not allowed to see them, because apparently they are commercially confidential.

Q: So, what you are saying is that you don’t know whether the amount of money raised from selling the land for housing will actually pay for the buildings that have now been promised.

A: We don’t know at all. One other thing that is very alarming is in the business plan. If people go online on the Southborough Town Council website to find it, they will find that most of it is just blank. But it talks about the VAT situation. I am not a financial expert by any means, but the idea at the moment is that the VAT will go through KCC’s books. That means we save 20%. Now, if they take on a couple of other projects, which KCC said they are planning to do, they won’t have that exemption. It will be used up on the other developments.

The only other way that Southborough could afford that – and obviously our VAT exemption is tiny – is if we run it as a Trust model. Now, the catch is that we don’t get a council office and we can’t derive any profit for the Town for it. Basically, we will not have any involvement in our own facility.

Q: You have said the RVH could be saved – it could be refurbished, but Cllr Oakford has said the experts have looked at it and it is just too expensive an option. He says it is just not viable to refurbish the Royal Victoria Hall. Hasn’t he got the evidence from the experts to prove him right?

A: Well unfortunately, we have never looked at that option. Even though, early on, that was what the majority of the people wanted to see – a repurposed Hall or a restoration of the Hall. But that was dispensed with fairly early on. There were no figures to support that.

Now, we know there are some things that need sorting out. The façade at the front looks awful. That was some Conservative councillors in the 1970s who thought modernisation was the way forward then as well. So that needs some time and money spending on it.

The toilets at the front need some time and money spending on it as well. But most of the Hall is pretty much in tact. For a building that is over 100 years old, it has survived remarkably well. It is a really good quality build. It is fit for purpose. It is weather tight.

It hasn’t got any structural issues. It just seems a much better idea to work with an existing asset rather than to demolish it and start again and also, loss of green playing fields and traffic etc.

Q: And so on the structural soundness of the Hall, Cllr Oakford told me that one of the walls of the Hall was bowed and he said that was one of the actual walls of the Victoria Hall. Is that correct?

A: That is not correct and Cllr Oakford knows that, because he is the Chair of the Finance and General Purposes Committee. We have got retaining walls and that (bowed) wall is part of a garage at the back of the property, but it is set apart from the Victoria Hall.

Q: Is it part of the extension?

A: No, it’s not part of the extension.

Q: So, the wall that he was talking about, the bowed wall, which he told me was a reason to demolish the Hall because it is not straight any more, you are saying that he is wrong.

A: I can categorically say that he is wrong. And if people, want to check out, it is in the public domain because all of those reports were commissioned by Southborough Town Council. When we had our Fire Safety report, it was one of the issues because one of the Fire Exits, the supporting legs of the Fire Exit, sat on that wall. And even without that wall, we were still able to operate a full Hall and meet all the fire safety requirements.

Q: So your position on the safety and the structural soundness of the Hall is that it could be used again?

A: Of course, the fact is that it was available. We had sell out performances. This idea that we weren’t able to operate due to Health and Safety or insurance is just nonsense. Because we wouldn’t – as a local authority – be able to rent out a Hall and have packed out matinee performances for a pantomime if we weren’t able to do things that we have to do. So the fire regulations, health and safety, seating, we had to deal with all of those things before we could actually hire it out

Q: You mean for that last pantomime nearly two years ago.

A: Yes. Which again, Cllr Oakford knows. He was there.

Q: Cllr Oakford also says that these problems of the nasty smells in the Hall are to do with blocked drains and he says all those pipes run under the floor of the Victoria Hall, which means to mend them you would need to dig up the floor of the Hall, which means it is so expensive, it is better to start again.

A: We definitely need some investment in the drains and the toilets, which is in the front of House area. I don’t see how the drains could go under the main Hall. I don’t know where that idea would have come from. The Hall needs some money spending on it. I would think £250,000 would probably not be unreasonable.

Q: And how much do you think building a new Hall from scratch is going to be costing?

A: Well, of course, we haven’t seen the figures. But one of our councillors has done some calculations working out land values. I think we are looking at around £ 3 million for the actual development.

Q: Does that include the new medical centre as well?

A: That’s everything. It’s as cheap as chips. We are getting a sports pavilion, a library, it is supposed to do absolutely everything. They are spending minimal amounts of money, which – as people have pointed out – that’s why it looks so cheap. It is a polycarbonate Hub. It’s concrete tiles. It’s a pre-fabricated building. The same kind of thing you see right across the country from Milton Keynes to South Croydon.

Q: Another point that Cllr Oakford made was – when I suggested they could put some new buildings, say a new library and medical centre on the derelict land that the project has now bought, while leaving the Royal Victoria Hall as it is – or possibly be handed to a Trust for theatre enthusiasts to run – he said Kent County Council are backing this project, they’ve put a lot of effort into it and what they wanted was THIS design of building. In other words, a Hub with a foyer so you get all this footfall with the medical centre and the library, all in one place. They say that is the most viable form of building.

A: I think the model that KCC is following is what they call their “transformation processes”, which is where you take existing buildings, you sell off the land, you put them on one site, you save money in that way. So the library site, we have a fantastic library (we need some money spending on it because KCC have spent absolutely no money on it in the last 20 years) but it is a great little facility. It has a separate area for children. It is very well supported. The borrowing numbers are some of the best in West Kent. But they are going to sell it off (for housing). It is about £ 1 million that they are going to realise. That £ 1 million is NOT going into the Hub project, that is going towards the KCC books.