Minutes:
The following question was received from Mr P Cox:
Regarding the advice commissioned by the Council from BOP Consulting on the future of Clair Hall:
According to the Invitation to Tender relating to the contract, the consultants will provide an interim report on May 27th and the Council will then provide feedback to advise the remainder of the study.
Can the Cabinet Member responsible please clarify whether the interim report will be provided to full Council or a subgroup of the Council and if so which subgroup?
The following response was provided by the Leader, Cllr Jonathan Ash-Edwards:
Thank you for your question. As you highlighted, the Council appointed BOP, a globally recognised cultural and creative consultancy to advise on the Clair Hall site. I am delighted that an organisation with such an impressive global reputation in the creative industries sector has agreed to work with us. I welcome them on board and we hope they can now be given space to consider all the available information to help us develop evidence based proposals for the future of community facilities on the Clair Hall Site.
To answer your question, I would like to direct you to the Cabinet report in February which outlines timescales for this work. The interim report is expected to be discussed at the Cabinet meeting in the summer and will be published as part of our regular governance process.
The Invitation to Tender, the document you are referring to, has been published in the spirit of full transparency and it is important that it isn’t taken out of context. The work and timelines included are only indicative and will be driven by the work the consultants are still planning.
The Council will continue to share as much information as it is possible. I would like to encourage residents to sign up to the Clair Hall engagement Hub where residents can get the latest information on the progress of the project. That link is on the Council’s website and has been shared via social media.
The link to the engagement hub, and the request to subscribe to be kept informed as work progresses, has been shared via MSDC social media channels too.
Mr Cox asked the following supplementary question: Past experience has shown that inadequate scrutiny of decisions on Clair Hall can lead to bad outcomes. The Consultant’s advice will be key to settling the future of Clair Hall which is an issue that is of great importance to thousands of our residents. How can the public be assured that the Consultants work will be scrutinised by a representative cross section of Council Members?
The following response was provided by the Leader:
The Council has established a Member Steering Group to guide the work and provide advice to Cabinet and they will be looking at the interim report before it is published and goes to Cabinet. That group contains representation from Haywards Heath Town Council on behalf of the community. In terms of the outcome, we are working to deliver on the mandate given to this Council by the 95% of residents who supported change and modernisation on the Clair Hall site and it is important that we deliver modern a community facility for Haywards Heath and the wider area.