The Cranbrook Council Offices (Its future)

Please accept this honest and heartfelt background text as a pronouncement from the passionate residents of the Cranbrook community. Yes, we said community! We use that word very carefully as it has become tainted with horrendous implications that the public may be important. God forbid!

The on-going saga about the future of the Cranbrook Council Offices site is more than a tale of issues relating to its use, its value, its cost and its sentimentality. No, it’s more than that! It is essentially a story about secrecy, ignorance, autocracy and ineptitude.

There are so many genuine and honest people within the community, in and around Cranbrook who care fervently about this issue. We are in awe of many of these individuals who are fighting for the future of the continuing community provision and the incredible voluntary services.

Read on and feel free to comment about the content by contacting us with your own views.  We hope to stimulate a ”real“ objective focus and to make TWBC re-consider their myopic decision to use the Library site instead and to not sell the Council Offices for housing development.

The logic, common sense and public opinion have unfortunately been disregarded by senior elected officials and civil servants in Tunbridge Wells.

So what do we have to offer?

We use common sense as the basis for all business planning and use evidence and opinion to build consensus. We also believe in controlling costs and ensuring income exceeds the costs. But that does not excuse ignorance and disregard for plain old common-sense. We cannot always achieve what we desire, but if the reasoning is sound and credible, most people in our experience support the difficult decisions. We are team of

We JUST want to work with TWBC and to try and jointly develop this unique proposal

ARE YOU LISTENING TWBC?

Here is a taste of the background.

The innovative and new Principal of Angley School (Philip Morris) in tandem with the successful and popular Chairman of the Angley Governors (Denis East) had a joint vision of opportunity for all of us. Namely: ”Extended education into the community….“

Denis thought that the Cranbrook Council Offices locality and its REAL potential plus its fortuitous availability made it apt for the opportunity they envisioned.

Between Phil, Denis and a local business consultant (Howard Cox) they put in at no cost, many hundreds of hours of experience, creativity, work and thought into producing a real innovative idea that will be welcomed by all... OR so they thought!

INSTEAD, THEIR PROPOSAL WAS DISREGARDED AND NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY…..BY TWBC

The original Angley Proposal built around extended education and community services has been totally ignored by the elected politicians in the Tunbridge Wells Cabinet. They have missed the Angley central point and have therefore we believe, been in dereliction of their position of representing the community for the benefit of the community. 

The Council Offices

These offices have been a focus for the community for over 30 years. People within and without the immediate area have used these facilities with confidence and security. And with some success.

We have not seen a valid document that lists the reasons why the Cranbrook Council Offices need to be divested against the short term cost of related development. Please point us in the right direction. TWBC are very keen to scrutinise third party bids but when it comes to their own actions they can use just 6 people on the ”Cabinet“ to veto all public opinion.

Quite rightly, Roy Bullock and his Cabinet have to look at income and revenue. They are our protectors of the local public purse. Believe us when we say, we have massive respect for the considerable accountability (NB not just responsibility) they have to take on. It is onerous and in most cases unappreciated when it goes right. It is so vital that they (TWBC) control the way public operations, assets and that the services are managed and valued. 

But to spend considerable amounts of tax payer’s money using third party consultants, accountants and others to illicit information that has been always available and for ”zero“ cost, beggar’s belief. Then and even more astoundingly, they decide to ignore their own proprietary findings, choosing instead to dip into these conclusions to selectively justify their own original agendas. Weird and very sad!

The proof

The Urban Practitioner’s Report commissioned by TWBC at considerable expense £21,800) was a lesson in quality data collection, analysis, consideration and conclusion.

WE WERE MIGHTILY IMPRESSED WITH WHAT THE URBAN PRACTITIONERS FINALLY PRESENTED. BUT, INCREDIBLY IT SEEMS THAT TWBC IGNORED THE OUTCOME OF THIS REPORT. WHY WAS THAT?

For those who do not know what the conclusions from Urban Practitioners were. Let me show their list here:

1. A community facility is considered essential by the local population
2. Additional uses could be required on the site to fund community services
3. Local support exists for commercial office space
4. Commercial housing would fund a larger community facility but would be restrained by the site
5. Affordable housing is required in the local area
6. Support exists for council services to be located in the building along with community groups
7. The surrounding villages would like to ensure that all benefits are not kept in Cranbrook
8. A potential scheme exists for a Cranbrook Consortium to purchase the site!!!
9. A proposal exists for Angley School to develop the site.
10. A number of small local funding pots exist for the development of a community centre
11. Alternative sites exist for community uses and housing
12. Opportunity exists to produce an exemplar sustainable building
13. Opportunity exists to enhance the Conservation Area with a new building

TWBC ignored 12 of these conclusions and instead focussed virtually all of their might on point 11 which is…

”A NUMBER OF ALTERNATIVE SITES EXIST IN CRANBROOK WHICH COULD ACCOMMODATE EITHER COMMUNITY FACILITIES OR HOUSING. THESE INCLUDE THE LISTED PROVIDENCE CHAPEL; CRANBROOK LIBRARY SITE AND THE NEARBY POLICE AND FIRE STATIONS. THESE SITES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED STRATEGICALLY IN PLANNING FOR FUTURE PROVISION IN CRANBROOK.“

Correct us if we are wrong, but we see no conclusion in this report that says Cranbrook Council Offices should not be the home of the Community facility. The original proposition in the report that gets close to this is:

THE DESIGN OF THE BUILDING IS ADDITIONALLY INAPPROPRIATE FOR PRESENT DAY COMMUNITY USES. THE OFFICE SPACES ARE USEFUL BUT ARE NOT ALL USED AND THE COMMITTEE ROOM CANNOT ACCOMMODATE LARGE PUBLIC MEETINGS OR ACTIVITIES. WITH INCREASING PRESSURE ON LAND IN THE LOCAL AREA, THE COUNCIL OFFICES BUILDING IS NOT CURRENTLY CONSIDERED BY THE COUNCIL TO MAKE EFFICIENT USE OF THE SITE.

TWBC seem to lack ”common sense“ here.  [We use this under used phrase to refer to beliefs or propositions that in our opinion we consider would in most people's experience be prudent and of sound judgment, without dependence upon esoteric knowledge or study or research, but based upon what is believed to be knowledge held by people "in common".] 

TWBC ignore the knowledge and experience most people have, or are believed to have in the community that the Library Site is not the suitable alternative either.  Of course we can improve what is on offer at the Council Offices. In fact, Urban Practitioners concluded paradoxically:

"ON INITIAL INVESTIGATION, THE BUILDING APPEARS TO BE STRUCTURALLY SOUND AND WITH CAPACITY TO LAST FOR ANOTHER 20 YEARS OR SO."

We all must realise that we need to move with the times, the new technology and to add value to existing services. No one in the community disagrees with these principles, but to ignore the expertise, common sense and wisdom of so many intelligent people is scandalous. We have watched and listened to the local sages that we have grown to have considerable respect. These people know what they are talking about.

Borough Councillors, please understand these wise people are not resisting change they are wanting inclusion and honesty for the best and most cost effective solution in the supply of community services. We believed that our solution warranted real open and honest discussion.

Without TWBC’s tacit support investors would shy away.

THE LOCALS LIKED THE ANGLEY PROPOSAL, THEY REALLY DID!

The original Angley Proposal:

Howard Cox helped build Philip and Denis’s concept into a real business plan and added the exciting prospect for this project to be self financing. Yes, self financing! 

Did you hear that TWBC? SELF FINANCING!!!

FOR THOSE WHO ARE STILL UNAWARE…….

THE ANGLEY SCHOOL PROPOSAL IS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP A SATELLITE SITE TO INCORPORATE:

·         Education

·         Community Services

·         A secure base for voluntary organisations

·         Entertainment

·         Café, refreshments / meeting point

·         A computer communication focus and Internet hub

THE LONG TERM AIM IS FOR THESE ACTIVITIES TO BE FINANCED OUT OF:

·         Income from commercial tenancy (commercial rates)

·         Income from virtual tenancy

·         Income from community usage (subsidised)

·         Income from ticket sales through entertainment activities

·         Income from the hire of facilities

·         Income from magazine advertising revenue

·         Income from catering franchise

·         Income from catering commission

·         Income from website advertising

·         Income from adult education classes

Angley prepared architectural plans in draft and a full blown profit and loss plan for the next five years.  You can still see these components from this website. 

THEY EVEN LISTED THE CONSIDERABLE POSITIVE BENEFITS FOR THE TWBC ITSELF:

TWBC completely ignored these as well: Here they are for your delectation

The Cabinet have ignored the central proposition that by developing this concept we could be sitting on a franchise opportunity that would mean that Council Tax and Government Funds could be slowly withdrawn from financially supporting the Cranbrook Community Services provision.

TWBC COMPLETELY MISSED THIS ASPECT, OR CHOSE TO IGNORE IT

When Angley visited the Borough Council Offices in Tunbridge Wells, Denis East and Howard Cox were given just 20 minutes to present the ”Angley Plan“ to the Cabinet and at very short notice.  It is scandalous that these servants of the community ignored a sensible proposal that had value.

TWBC ran away from serious discussion, choosing instead to use a leading Accountancy firm, Baker Tilly to rip it apart with unfathomable questions that in the main could not be answered until TWBC had a handle on the central proposition, the concept itself and how it could be delivered viably and credibly.

Accountants are honourable people, but they are historians. They do not develop businesses; they administer them and report on them. We needed entrepreneurial thinking, not whether we had thought about whether we needed an alcohol license for wedding receptions to be held in the proposed facility. Yes, that was one of the questions they wanted answered. Can you believe that?

But, Baker Tilly did also mention to Denis that the Angley Plan had merit. Again TWBC ignored this statement.

Amazingly still, no one in TWBC has asked anything about the supply of extended educational opportunity, involvement of the voluntary bodies and their subsidies or the surrounding income activities within the Angley Proposal. It seems they did not understand the plan and wanted to continue to spend your Council Tax on consultancy projects and even £20,000 for a new logo for TWBC. 

Auspiciously and laudably Baker Tilly withdrew their services voluntarily and so the tax payer will now not have to pick up their bill for their services rendered. We applaud Baker  Tilly for this magnanimous action. It must have been difficult for them.

The Cranbrook Community Group

During the process of developing an exciting new opportunity to bring the community services, education and other new ventures into Cranbrook, the Angley Team watched in admiration at the actions of the Cranbrook Community Group who had been involved in the ”rescue“ process for much longer than Angley. This group of philanthropic and very experienced and respected individuals incomparably lead by Sir Kenneth Warren had a sole purpose to rescue what the TWBC had decided to destroy. It was this group’s objective to keep the offices open for the existing bodies including:

·         CAB

·         Age Concern

·         The Blind Club

·         Keep Fit

·         Plus 14 other voluntary related concerns (More are now queuing up)

Following their intention to secure and maintain the offices availability for the community, Sir Kenneth’s team intended to work latterly with the Angley Proposal to develop a 21st century community hub.

In essence The Weald Centre Project is an amalgam of 2 phases

Baker Tilly was also asked to investigate Sir Kenneth’s bid.

A central plank of their proposition involved obtaining the Office site for a nominal freehold price.  Part of the national government’s policy is to encourage unemployed local council community assets to be made available for a low price.

SIR KENNETH’S TEAM OFFICIALLY REQUESTED TWBC TO KNOW WHAT DISCOUNT ON THE COMMERCIAL CAPITAL VALUE COULD BE OFFERED TO HELP SECURE THEIR BID.

NO ANSWER WAS THE STERN REPLY FROM TWBC !!!!

Because they did not have this critical part for their required submission, Sir Ken’s team felt it impossible to build a viable business plan and so withdrew from the bidding for the Council Office Site.

We felt TWBC jumped for joy at this decision as they knew that Ken and his team are formidable advocates of maintaining community facilities at the Offices site. With them out of the way, how could little old Angley halt TWBC’s agenda. During this process, TWBC obviously decided to divide and conquer and so in came the concept of involving the ”Stakeholder“. 

This was in combination of the fact that their attention was now focussed on point 11 of the Urban Practitioner’s Report and their new found chance for TWBC to house the following components in the Cranbrook Library Site?

The Angley Team were now classified as stakeholders. Cute eh?

Seriously and back to the main point TWBC recognised that the Angley Proposal may have something to offer. Clever tactic on their behalf! So, TWBC invited Angley to be interviewed by yet another feasibility consultancy. A private architect’s practice firm whose job was to ask the stakeholders as to what they thought about the library site as an option for their part of the listed stakeholder services that should now be included.

PLEASE NOTE, KCC OWN THE LIBRARY SITE, NOT TWBC!

So who is in control here, who will be funding development and who will be making decisions?

As we write this tome, KCC have not expressed a desire to use the Library Site as a community centre.

On October 23rd 2007 at the Cranbrook Council Offices, the Scrutiny Committee hosted a public meeting whereby several councillors had ”called-in“ (as is their right) the decision of the Cabinet made previously that the Council Offices should be swapped for the Library Site. It’s more complicated than that, but that was the focus of the original Cabinet decision. 

Lack of consultation by TWBC was also central to the call-in by the Scrutiny Committee.

The Scrutiny group were there to hold the TWBC Cabinet to account and recommend a re-think of their decisions. The meeting was heated especially regarding the written statement from TWBC saying that ”all relevant KCC services have signed a MOU (memorandum of understanding)“ regarding the use of the Library site in Cranbrook. It was finally admitted by the Director for Change during the meeting that KCC had not signed a MOU at all. They had mislead the community and fellow Councillors.

Angley joined up Sir Kenneth’s Team

A new team created from the Cranbrook Community Group and Angley was introduced. At the Scrutiny Meeting Sir Kenneth Warren and Denis East launched a new and joint constructive proposal from this team offering the opportunity to work closely with TWBC to formulate a constructive strategy for the Cranbrook Council Offices and their future.

Good News: The Scrutiny committee recommended that the new ”Weald Centre Group“ proposal be pursued and full consultation with stake holders including Cranbrook Parish Council, Eastern Area Parish Councils and the Weald Centre Group should take place.

Oh by the way, all of TWBC representatives left the Scrutiny Meeting before seeing the outcome of the recommendations from the committee. We thought this to be discourteous and bordering on arrogance.

The recommendations of the Scrutiny Committee were reviewed by the Cabinet on November 15th 2007. Howard Cox attended this meeting and again was staggered at the operations of local government decision making.

At this meeting, the Planning Director also apologised for misleading the community into saying that public transport access was easy for the library because of the close proximity of a bus stop. It was mentioned by several in the meeting that, this bus stop had been moved 40 years earlier.

But that was not all; Roy Bullock exclaimed that Sir Kenneth Warren has said previously that ”the Bus Stop was outside the Council Offices door“. We retorted that he meant outside the Council Offices Site. But Roy insisted that he had said ”outside the door“. That was the level we had sunk to!

WHAT REALLY UPSETS LOCALS IS THE FACT THEY ARE BEING IGNORED, THERE IS NO TRANSPARENCY AND THAT IT ALL NOW SEEMS TO BE DRIFTING TO AN INEVITABLE OUTCOME DRIVEN FROM THE AGENDA AT TWBC.

Did you know that the TWBC have a master-planning group that cannot be mentioned because it is top secret? Confidentiality and secrecy is the name of their game.

Additionally over 40 emails were sent to Councillors about the Cranbrook Offices issue. 85% were returned ”deleted and un-read“. Strange that!

We have also tried to communicate with the Roy at his ”Ask the Leader“ link on the TWBC website.   Simply click on this link below and you can ask your question:

This ”message board“ is very illuminating and the Leader claims to answer all questions put to him. Please, we urge you to contact him.

But all of this good work is lost when his press office initiated a discussion to cause conflict between Cranbrook and the other immediate villages. This is what they placed on the website as a new discussion: Issued by the TWBC Press Office 15 October 2007

”IS THERE A REAL NEED FOR ANOTHER COMMUNITY FACILITY IN CRANBROOK AND, IF SO, IS THIS A SENSIBLE WAY FORWARD OR, COULD THE MONEY BE SPENT BETTER ELSEWHERE FOR EXAMPLE IMPROVING THE VESTRY HALL OR GIVING HELP TO SURROUNDING VILLAGES WHO ARE DESPERATE FOR INVESTMENT IN THEIR FACILITIES?“

At the time of writing this manuscript there had been no replies to their propaganda.

Let’s get back to the point in question.

The gracious and incredibly intelligent Councillor Dr Linda Hall explained AND SHOWED to the Cabinet (15/11/07) that she has collected 1260 signatures supporting a community centre remaining at the council office site. TWBC have ignored this public poll.

In fact, our website (www.wealdcentre.co.uk) over the last 5 months has had over 90,000 hits and 9000 unique visitors.

In our on-line poll taken over 3 months from July 2007, more than 90% supported community services, 70% extended education and 76 % voluntary services to be located at the Council Office site. BUT, you guessed it! TWBC Cabinet completely ignored this response from their electorate. These 6 Cabinet experts know better that Linda’s signatories and our website visitors

"DEAR TWBC, THERE IS A WAY FORWARD THAT WILL SAVE MONEY AND GIVE EVERYONE WHAT THEY WANT. THERE REALLY IS. JUST PLEASE CONSULT AND WORK WITH US."

The new Weald Community Centre Proposal first issued on 23rd October and revised slightly on 3rd November clearly offers a blue print and a way forward. Roy Bullock decided to ignore this constructive well supported proposal and to continue with the Feasibility study for the Library Site, despite NOT having written agreement from KCC to use their premises. He has also not explained the financial pathway to fund this investment into the future. Instead they will continue to ignore the local community and pay architect consultants £5,000 to prove he and his close colleagues are right, and that you can in fact, fit a quart into a pint pot.

The good news however (thanks to the Scrutiny team) is that the Cabinet have agreed that Stakeholders must be consulted, including the Angley Team, that now embraces Sir Kenneth Warren’s ”rescue“ group.

Well that is the background. SInce this litany of events there have been 2 Public Meetings in Cranbrook, that are covered on this website.