Just months after Midsomer Norton Town Council decided to bring community events back under its own control, the future of the new Community and Events Committee is already in doubt.
The committee was created in April after the Council withdrew support from the independent charity that had successfully organised many of the town’s events. That charity was not operating without council oversight – it included up to four town councillors as trustees, giving the Council a direct voice while allowing volunteers and community partners to play a leading role.
Now, after only two meetings, reports suggest no councillor is willing to chair the new committee. If it is disbanded, the Council will be left explaining how it intends to deliver the extensive programme of community engagement and events it promised when it took the work in-house.
The situation inevitably raises questions about whether the original decision was properly thought through. Replacing an established community organisation with a council committee was always likely to increase demands on councillors and officers. The apparent inability to find someone willing to lead the committee suggests those challenges may have been underestimated.
Residents may reasonably ask whether abandoning a proven community-led model was in the town’s best interests. The Council now faces the task of restoring confidence that Midsomer Norton can continue to enjoy the successful community events that have become such an important part of local life.
What an absolute farse on behalf of the Councillors!
The Community Trust was built up over 12 years and its demise was as caused in a matter of months by some poorly thought out Council decisions.
The Community Trust manager lost his job as a result of the Councils decisions and still has not been paid his redundancy.
The decapitition of the Community Trust was so needless – the Council already had 3 councillors on the board of trustees of the Community Trust! This was all about power and control!
How many Council staff hours went into drafting the terms of reference for the committee and getting them agreed? Now, only for the committee to potentially fall apart after just 2 meetings!
How many Council officer hours were necessary to plan and make the Town Fayre a sucess? At what cost to the Electorate. The Council don’t know because quote: “Officer time is met from the Council’s approved staffing budget and is not separately attributed to this event”.
How can the council make a cost comparision between the Community Trust run events and Town Council run events when they supposedly don’t know their own costs?
Another reason for taking control from the Community Trust was VAT savings. The Council attributed just £200 in VAT for the Town Show. They would have saved the same amount if the Councillors did the Punch and Judy show themselves!
All this at a time when the council staff are having to run the Somer Centre and Orchard Hall and the Commitee should be concentrating on re-opening the vastly overdue and vastly over budget town hall. Not to mention all the planned maintenance and improvements that are so over-needed to the Somer Centre and Orchard Hall.
The Community and Events Committee should be focussing on bringing back the sorely missed Community Cinema to the Town Hall and bringing back MFest (which the Council refused to fund last year).
Without a Chair and Vice Chair the committee can easily become directionless allowing events to slide.
It begs the question, are Midsomer Norton Town Councillors serious about Community and Events?
Surely those Councillors who were most critical of the Community Trust, and were the most vocal about not funding the Trust this year, should be this first to volunteer to Chair the committee?
a trader on the high street commented, quite rightly, that at least some of the recent fun eents should have taken place on the high st, and the Island patio, and on the lawns below Sainsbury, and shops, pubs, cafes would all have benefited