| Topic: | Re:Re:What has actually been referred back by Scrutiny? | |
| Posted by: | Phil Taylor | |
| Date/Time: | 24/12/10 22:09:00 |
| I am afraid that council leader Julian Bell was entirely unbelievable on the subject of day centres at the meeting. On the one hand he asserts that users don't want day centres anymore then promises to build shiny new ones at some time in the future. I challenged him to spell out what discussions the council had had with the 3rd sector about them taking over the sites they want to close. No answer. I asked him what work they had done to identify users for their new hubs. No answer. The reality is that the council's property strategy seeks to roll up a range of community buildings into three new council offices. Four years ago when these were called hubs the Tories chucked the whole thing out. Now the council's officers are back in power and the hubs are back. The phrase hubs has been dropped. The phrase satellite offices was tried on for size and then dropped. The phrase is now service centres. The buildings will be high spec, high price buildings for council staff paid for by selling off community buildings prized by residents. Bell tries to dress up some general purpose meeting rooms for hire in new council offices as new day centres but this is not really plausible. No 3rd sector solution on day centres will be found as the council's hands are tied by its own property strategy and they literally want to get their hands on the land. |