The Chair to advise the Committee of any items on which members of the public have requested to speak and advise those members of the public present of the details of the Council’s public participation scheme.
For those members of the public who have submitted any questions or statements, please note, a three minute time limit applies to each speaker and you will be asked to speak before Councillors debate the issue.
Minutes:
Agenda Item 6 – Scrutiny Work Programme – Watchet Library Transfer.
Councillor John Irven, Chairman of Watchet Town Council (WTC), spoke about an item on the work programme that had been scheduled for 17 July 2019 – Watchet Library transfer.
Briefly, in order to prevent its closure WTC requested a freehold asset transfer of Watchet Library as a condition of funding a Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) where WTC covered all building costs and liabilities. The initial request was rejected by WSC’s Asset Management Team in closed session, despite evidence that the building was gifted by L. L Stoate to the people of Watchet and only held in trust by WSC for Somerset County Council (SCC) to lease and operate the library.
WTC’s argument, supported by legal opinion, had to be taken directly to the leaders of WSC and TDBC to obtain a review which led to a published decision to transfer the asset which stated “the freehold transfer of the building was viewed as the most appropriate way of enabling library services to continue, via a CLP between WTC and SCC.”
Officers were delegated to finalise terms, which initially included an overage clause clawing back any increase in value. WTC rejected this as you would be in breach of your duties as trustees by keeping an option to benefit financially from an asset you hold in trust. Officers acknowledged the trust status and agreed to remove overage.
However, a remaining clause granting a pre-emption right to Somerset West and Taunton Council (SWT) to take back the freehold was considered inappropriate because SWT has not demonstrated its ability to discharge its duty to protect the asset for the trust, rather than acting in in its own interest.
WTC proposed instead more appropriate means of asset protection of the trust, of which my colleague Peter Murphy of Watchet Library Friends would give more detail. This remaining issue was therefore to be taken back to a Senior Leadership Team (SLT) meeting, where WTC were assured that the matter would be revisited and that the normal democratic route of Scrutiny, Executive and Council would be followed in the interests of openness and transparency. However, we have been told that the closed SLT session decided not to do this whilst reinstating the overage clause.
We ask for your help and noted that at the WSC Cabinet meeting held on 9 January 2019, he requested ‘that the governance of your asset management process be reviewed to ensure that such problems could be avoided as WSC transitioned into the new council structure.’ Although unanswered by WSC, we were assured the new council would resolve this, but it appeared SWT had exacerbated the issue with governance which I suggested was still not fit-for-purpose.
I would ask that the Scrutiny Committee agreed to consider the transfer to ensure the process was open and transparent and resolved to WTC satisfaction.
Peter Murphy, Chair of Watchet Library Friends (WLF), spoke and gave more background information, Leonard Laity Stoate, a Watchet philanthropist purchased the old lifeboat station from Watchet Urban District Council, refitted it and ‘gifted it back to the people of Watchet for the West Somerset District Council to hold in trust for the inhabitants of Watchet to be used as a library. This was recorded in the lease of 1951 whereby the SCC took on a full-repairing responsibilities for 99 years to run a library service from the building.
In 1974, the building and its responsibilities under the trust passed to the newly formed WSC.
In 2011 when SCC threatened the closure of the library, WTC offered to take the building back which was refused. WLF joined a successful Judicial Review of the County’s decision undertaken by Friends of Somerset Libraries and the library remained open. A descendant of Leonard Laity Stoate joined us at the hearings at the High Court in Birmingham in support of the legal action.
During the latest review of library services, WLF supported WTC in its offer to establish a CLP by taking the building back and fulfilling the terms of the trust. In the face of an initial refusal by WSC to return the building or acknowledge the existence of the trust, WLF obtained letters from descendants of Leonard Laity Stoate which supported WTC’s position. WSC subsequently agreed to transfer the building.
Currently SWT’s position was to include in the deed of transfer overage and pre-emption clauses which WLF consider acted against the spirit of the trust by seeking to profit from it whilst doing nothing to carry out the obligations of the trust to provide library services in Watchet. This might be ultra-vies and open to legal challenge, with the Nigel Stoate letter that indicated “should it be required, I reserved the right to bring further action if the parties failed to protect the charitable gifts of Leonard Laity Stoate in a manner consistent with the trusts”.
WTC had proposed maintaining the building on the Community Asset Register and consulted WSC, the people of Watchet and the descendants of the trust should the building be considered no longer fit to use as a library, a proposal which we believed did meet the Stoate criteria. If Town and District Councils cannot agree, WTC had the option to cancel the CLP and the library would close.
WLF appeal to this Scrutiny Committee to encourage SWT to work with the community of Watchet in the spirit of the original trust and enable WTC to properly discharge the responsibilities it wished to take on for the inhabitants of Watchet.
Councillor Loretta Whetlor spoke in support of Councillor John Irven and Peter Murphy.
Chris Hall, Locality Manager gave the following response:
The Council though an Executive decision agreed to transfer the freehold of the Watchet Library to WTC to support the Library Partnership.
The Council stood by this decision and had been working with WTC to finalise the terms of the transfer.
SWT were protecting the asset for the people of Watchet and sought to continue the protection provided since 1951 through the terms of the transfer.
The clauses of pre-emption and overage were not considered unreasonable when handing over an asset for less than any market rate, in this case the asset was to be handed over for the sum of £1.
WTC wished for the asset to be transferred for £1 without those protections being put in place by SWT.
Those protections in no way impacted on the use of the building as a library which was WTC’s stated use of the asset.
The clauses would only come into effect in the event of a change of use or in the event that WTC would wish to dispose of the asset, therefore ceasing to use it as a library.
The letters from Mr Nigel Stoate (family descendant) were not understood to be direct responses to the clauses, but more general statements concerning how the asset was protected for the people of Watchet. If read literally the letter challenged the Council’s ability to dispose of the asset at all.
The concerns from WTC and the Stoate family could be better understood if SWT were proposing to sell the asset on the open market, placing the library at risk, which to his knowledge had not been proposed at any stage.
Through the proposed clauses the Council was not trying to make an income but protect the asset from other uses as was the view of the spirit of the trust. It should be noted that there was no trust deed but the Council accepted the existence of the trust at the time the lease was entered into.
He urged the Scrutiny Members to support the position being taken to protect the asset for the people of Watchet through these reasonable clauses.
Agenda Item 11 – Regeneration of Firepool
Dr Susie Peeler spoke on behalf of the Extinction Rebellion Taunton (ERT).
ERT might have a reputation for causing lots of big disruptions but they also wanted to help build communities and wellbeing within Taunton. So their idea for the Firepool space involved two stages. Initially they proposed a creative re-wilding, this would involve using the space for a meal share, re-wilding, sustainability workshops etc which would bring in plants and creative projects that people of all ages and ethnicities could get involved with.
In the longer term ERT saw the space as giving an ideal opportunity to show the region that Taunton was indeed a garden town and would like to suggest the site be used as an environmental education centre that focused on practical projects around re-greening and planting for a carbon reducing future.
ERT’s vision was that this site could be used for something like ‘We the Curious’ in Bristol or even an opportunity for showcasing sustainable alternatives such as the ‘Centre for Alternative Technology’ in Wales.
Their longer term view for the Firepool development could incorporate a community wooded/orchard type space, a space to benefit the health and wellbeing of the whole community not something that just produced profit for the few.
SWT had declared a climate emergency. This was a fantastic start! What ERT knew about climate change was that too much carbon dioxide was still be emitted into the atmosphere. This was not something far away and irrelevant. We needed to act now the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (2018) stated that global warming was likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continued to increase at the current rate. This would cause sea level rise, mass extinctions of animals, climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth.
The IPCC also stated that pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings). Many of the current ideas for Firepool involved yet more building using concrete. Commercial and public buildings were responsible for 3.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide production per year (New Internationalist June 2019 p22). Yet we knew that halting deforestation and actively planting trees could reduce carbon emissions by 2 gigatonnes per year (New Internationalist June 2019)
What better way was there to remove carbon and to provide habitats for animals and community sustaining spaces than creating our own environmental education centre surrounded by trees and a dedicated creative community space?
If the Firepool site was planted with fruit trees and willow structures for example this would actively reduce the CO2 levels, promote oxygen levels and provide a space for the community to enjoy.
We would like to make this a community project harnessing local skills and thus reducing cost for the Council, ERT could provide trees for this project and manpower to water and tend. We also saw this as an inclusive project encouraging all sectors of the community to be involved.
To conclude our vision was a short term experience that could show the sustainable potential for the space and a longer term green initiative that could make a huge impact on Taunton as a garden town and indeed the planet.