Petition to Safeguard Affordable Sport at Love Lane

Council's response to the petition

Covert Council shows Contempt for Club and Community

Thank you to the residents of Ongar and District and especially those who signed or helped with the recent petition. This is how your Council has responded to date.

As stated in our recent item “ Is this Democracy?” in Ongar News, the “Petition to Safeguard Affordable Sport at Love Lane” addressed to Ongar Town Council was delivered by hand to the Deputy Clerk on Friday 20^th June. Although this narrowly missed the deadline for the agenda of the Full Council meeting on Thursday 26^th June, this widely known issue within the local community should have been raised by the Chair as an urgent Unlisted Item. It was not!

At a hastily arranged and poorly attended meeting of the Council Finance Committee on 3^rd July the petition was discussed, following a brief statement of introduction from John Reynolds who attended the meeting.

In detail, this discussion consisted of an off-hand comment from the ( un-elected ) Clerk, who said that “ because of the delapidated state of the OSSC buildings OTC should continue”, followed by the Chair noting receipt of the petition with 570 signatures and asking if there were any comments. There was only one comment, by Cllr. Kaye, claiming that some people signing the petition were unaware of the Council's intentions!

The decision to refuse the petition's requests was then deemed to be unanimous, by the Chair Cllr Roberts, on the basis of no dissent from the only three persons present who were elligible to vote. Namely, Cllrs. Gambardella, Jackman and Kaye

Dealing with the petition in this way is totally unacceptable and undemocratic, because the

petition was addressed to Ongar Town Council and hence should have been considered by a Full Council Meeting.

At such a meeting, each aspect of the petition's requests should be responded to with detailed reasoning based on the wider local situation and the wishes of the community that the Councillors represent. The public have a right to know how the Council's proposals can deliver the results they keep promising, but so far have only been declared “confidential” and “under development”.

The cursory treatment of the petition witnessed so far does not come close to this!

To assist the Council in future discussion and justification for their decisions, the specific aspects to consider in the wording of the petition are:-

• Abandonment of their takeover and renewal of the lease – 630 people have asked for this at the last count – 60 more since petition submission. Only 88 people ( 79 from Ongar ) have completed the Council's consultation process on their takeover intentions. This is less than 2% of the population and is thus statistically insignificant as a mandate to continue with their plans. Do not be deceived by their meaningless analysis and conclusions from this tiny response!

• Recognition of the voluntary efforts of all club officials – this was the case for decades and as recently as March 2011,when the Council minutes reported a “good working relationship and progress with OSSC” ; “the rent had been received in good time for this year” and “ the lease would be renewed in 2015”. Since early 2012, OTC ceased to follow the lease conditions and set about discrediting the Club, by exaggerating the seriousness of agreed necessary renovations to the water systems, fire precautions and kitchen equipment, following advice from their new insurers. The same company, Aviva, were already providing Fire and Public Liability cover for the Club. What was the real reason for the Council's action?

• Complete lack of detailed plans for their ambitions – more than a year after the dubious origin of the idea and nearly a year since the Clerk was instructed to engage the Council's “preferred contractor” to produce a business plan and draft budget for 2014/15, there is still no information. How much longer will it take?

• No credibility to their claims for continuing affordable sport – the extended time to publish details of their proposed daily running of the facilities, means that these claims are merely aspirations at the mercy of future problems. Will they, again, react too slowly?

• No explanation of their precept increases in recent years – 80% for band D in the last 5 years, during a period of austerity when central government asked local councils not to make increases and most did not! During the same period County Council, Fire Service and District Council increased by an average of 2% and the Police by 12% What are OTC spending all this extra money on? Detailed accounts should be available for any resident to inspect at the Public Library and the Council Office. We were told recently that copies would need to be prepared and that a fee would be payable in advance. The overview of accounts available on the website is not sufficiently detailed.

This failure to adequately consider the significance of the petition and the wishes of the local people the Council represent, shows total disregard for the community and for the democratic process.

The failure to abide by the lease conditions and work with the Club to solve problems at the site, choosing instead to insist that their own contractors were used, shows contempt for the officials and members of the Club.

We now know that the Clerk produced the figure for the ridiculous rent demand in February 2013, by simply adding together costs of various imposed works and anticipated future works. This retrieval of expenditure on the site is specifically forbidden under the 1954 Landlord and Tenants Act and the procedure for rent review stated in the lease.

The demand was descibed at the time as “well below the market rent”, from which the club inferred that an assessment had been made by a qualified person!

This contemptuous attitude is illustrated again as OTC have now formally served the Section 25 notice, under the above Act, to terminate the lease. This notice requires that specific reasons must exist in order to refuse renewal of a lease.

In this they have cited, as expected, their intentions to take over the site, but have also included accusations of negligence of maintenance and poor management by the club, including persistent delay in rent payment

The negligence allegation is outrageous, since they refused to allow the club to carry out repairs and maintenance during this time, so this is in effect constructive dismissal!

The allegation of persistent rent payment delay is probably libellous. The Club Treasurer's records and letters from the Clerk obtained under Freedom of Information, both show the allegation to be groundless. Exaggeration of the importance of technical issues is one thing, but refuting simple factual records is just plain lying!

The Council are claiming that the Club have been bad tenants in the last two years, but in reality the Council have been very bad landlords!

Furthermore, the works imposed on the club by the Council's contractors has resulted in a considerable waste of public money, due to wrong specification and/or poor workmanship, as well as lack of competitive tender. Not only does this require more money to rectify matters, but it raises questions about their ability to manage things in future. Their lack of a credible business plan compounds this doubt.

Amongst the wider local issues, the proposed new Ongar Academy now appears likely to become a reality. If so, its sports facilities will be available to the local community, in direct competion with the Love Lane site, outside school hours. The Council's repeated, but largely unsupported claims of need for greater participation, have not considered this development. The result could be another major financial burden for the residents after the Village Green and Skate Board Park fiascos.

A recent make-over of the Council's website ( more expense! ) has removed the viewer's ability to peruse the agenda of all council meetings and committee meetings, which was formerly available as well as the minutes of the related meetings. Now only the minutes can be accessed, although these are still censored on contentious issues.

It is hard to see why they would do this, unless to prevent the forensic examination that revealed the irregular meeting procedures reported last month.

Even with the Freedom of Information Act enquiries over the last few months, there are still many unanswered questions about the Council's activities relating to the Love Lane site and the future of Ongar Social & Sports Club. This is largely because the agendas and minutes obtained are no longer the comprehensive records seen from the previous Clerk to the Council and also due to the secretive nature of discussions and decisions on these matters. It is impossible to tell, from the minutes available, if these decisions were made in meetings and not recorded, or made outside of meetings by unknown individuals.

Would it not have been better if the Council had met the Club Committee and Ongar Academy to explain their ideas, before wider consultation with other interested bodies? Preserving and widening the previous amicable working relationship might have avoided the need for more paid officials to implement their new ideas.

The Council does not seem to remember that, just over 10 years ago, the District Council gave up all their swimming pools and sports facilities, because of the running costs and these are now privately managed.

They will find that the costs of the proposed site manager (now known to be £27 – 30k salary cost alone) will have to be met by site users and/or from council tax funds, whatever business plan they finally come up with.

Meanwhile : –

The Petition remains unconsidered by the Full Council to whom it was addressed.

630 people oppose the Council's plans - nearly 8 times more than the consultation response.

There is still no credible plan or budget for the future financial and general management.

The council are about to embark on a voyage of discovery with public monies, which will inevitably lead to further large increases to Council tax and/or the cost of local sport. This may well end in failure and closure of the Love Lane facilities.

So, what can be done?

Unless the Council changes their intentions, residents can stand for election to the Town Council next May and, if successful, reverse this deeply unpopular change to the Club and facilities that have served the community so well for the last 60 years.

In the shorter term : –

1) You can to ask Councillors to explain themselves, by telephone, letter, email or in person.

2) This message will be sent to the District and County Councils and Councillors, the local M.P. , Nick Boulter of Sport England and other interested parties.

John Reynolds & John Rigglesworth 30^th July 2014

In support of OSSC and the Residents and Friends of Ongar

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