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Minutes:
Lori Busch, submitted a statement on agenda item 9, Extension of Public Space at Belvedere Road:
I would like to ask just what exactly Councillor Kravis meant at the Scrutiny Committee Meeting by his statement “If we look at who the tenants were…” I represent a national charity supporting victims of domestic abuse. We chose to base our national charity in Taunton, employing Somerset staff and the only statutory funding we received was the charity rate relief thanks to the Taunton councillors who supported our application.
As a tenant of Flook House, a building of significant historic importance dating back well into the 1700’s with features such as a first floor over mantle dating back to 1652 documented in books, I wished to formally object to the proposed demolition of this historic asset and the implications of combining it with a toilet block to just cast its history aside.
Flook House was mentioned in historical documents stating that John Trenchard MP resided there during the election of 1715. It was where he wrote “The Whig” and it was the site of many weddings, and registrations of births and deaths while it was the registry office. I have also had people mention to me their fond memories of the 1960’s when they used to have their school lunches there while attending North Town School. It surprised me that this historic building was not listed.
It amazed me that Flook House survived the historic floods of 1889 and 1960, only to be cast aside by a council which presented itself to the population of Taunton as being the party of the people with their party stance being a greener, fairer, more caring Britain.
I believed the presentation to support the demolition of Flook House was also not representative of its importance to the history of the area where it was mentioned as a “chief residence”. The idea that it was the cause of the anti-social behaviour was ridiculous and the proposed plans and costs to bring it up to modern standards were outrageous for an historic premises. As for the lack of tenants, most of the others were on a licence with 30 days’ notice which was not enough to get a BT line moved during Covid so I could understand their wish to have a tenancy with a bit more security.
Another counsellor stated that the roof had already been done a few years ago, the boiler was replaced within the last 5 years for the heating and I witnessed several years ago ties between the ground and first floor being installed that were modern ties which did not show from the exterior. For a building that was approximately 500 years old, I think it looked very good.
There was a public expectation that those impacted would be involved in the process however it appeared that this had been pushed through during lockdown with no public scrutiny or tenant involvement. This made myself personally and the members, employees and trustees of charity feel that we had been disenfranchised from the democratic process.
Since this council was voted in in 2019, it appeared that it was happy to wilfully let historic buildings fall into disrepair through lack of maintenance and then vote to demolish them, removing yet another part of Taunton’s history.
I have yet to have any direct contact from Councillor Marcus Kravis, portfolio holder for economic development. The contact I had received from one of his contractors was to apologise for the fact that I heard about it from the press.
I wished to thank the Scrutiny Committee for allowing me to be heard despite not having proper notice of some members of the council’s intention to push this through Executive Committee and for their unanimous decision to request that it go to a Full Council meeting for a decision.
Yours sincerely, Lori Busch, Charity Manager, The ManKind Initiative
The Portfolio Holder for Asset Management and Economic Development acknowledged the letter.