Views of ECC Head of Leisure & Museums
This email was sent to Jim on 20th June 2006, in response to his “Message prompted by the recent Local Elections” email of 10th June, by ECC’s Head of Leisure & Museums. Those receiving Mr Caig’s email were all those who received Jim’s, less the Summerway recipients in the Bcc: field, but plus some extra Council Officers who are presumably involved.
Dear Mr Harle
Just over a week ago you circulated a long email which speculated in some detail on the reasons for the ill treatment you perceive you are receiving at the hands of the County and City Councils. I hope the following goes some way to convince you, and the audience of your email, that the Summerway Tennis Club has hitherto enjoyed remarkably generous treatment by comparison with almost any other club in the city, and that although that treatment is now set to become less generous, both the councils are positive and supportive, and wish to ensure that the club's good work can continue.
I think that most of us would agree that in a perfect world, every volunteer club doing excellent work with young people would have all its costs covered by the public authorities. Unfortunately our finances do not permit us to be as generous as we would wish, but we do as much as we can for as many as we can. You contrive however to give the impression in your piece that this is a black and white situation in which a careless, thoughtless or possibly ruthless council decides to destroy a single outcrop of unselfish community activity. In fact the city contains scores of clubs, many of them quite similar to yours, doing the same work, often in considerably worse circumstances.
It is also an important point that Summerway is a private club. It is not an open access community organisation, and therefore it is very difficult for public bodies simply to provide unlimited financial support. You need look no further than the City Council's current free swimming programme for all under 18s in the city to realise that that our interests lie in fair and positive outcomes, not in property transactions.
Your perception that councils are obsessed with money arises from their desire to do as much as they can, and from the legal obligation to derive maximum value from all public assets.
You make a number of rather odd assertions. It would appear that public use of the club's courts is bad, but community use is good. You say it is important to differentiate between the Council and its officers and its Sports Development team. I am sorry to have to tell you that you are dealing with one unit of the Council, which looks after all leisure and sports issues. We deal with very many voluntary clubs, which is precisely why we do know what we are doing when it comes to working with you.
ECC's involvement comes about because DCC has proposed a land swap with ECC whereby the Northbrook Playing Field is passed to DCC in exchange for the former Summerway School Playing Field. The tennis club sits in a corner of the proposed new Summerway Park. As ECC will soon be taking over the old school playing field for use as a public park, it is sensible for the land occupied by the Summerway Tennis Club also to be transferred to ECC, rather than leaving DCC with a small patch of land that is no longer relevant to its portfolio.
During negotiations with DCC, ECC has made it clear that ECC are unable to take on the tennis club under the current lease terms, which are unusually generous, for reasons which are explained below. However if DCC were able to renegotiate those terms so that they become less onerous to the landlord ECC would take the tennis facilities on as well as the rest of the land.
The Club currently occupies the premises on the basis of a 28 year lease commencing 1st April 1978. The rent is fixed at £20 per annum without review and makes the landlord (DCC) responsible for maintaining the pavilion and boundary fences and for looking after the grassed areas around the courts. Such terms are uncommonly generous. We believe that this is because the lease reserves the right for DCC (ie the school) to use the premises between 10am and 5pm on weekdays except during the school holidays. It is understood that DCC has not used this right for some time, and as the school has now closed the lease terms are therefore somewhat anachronistic. As the lease has now come to an end it is also understandable that the County Council should seek to resolve any issues which now exist.
ECC has advised DCC as to what terms would be acceptable to ECC, and DCC has put these to the Club by in the context of the renewal of the existing lease.
In essence the proposed terms are as follows:
Term: 15 years.
Rent: To be based on accounts (which have not yet been provided).
New fencing: ECC, DCC and the Club to share equally the cost of erecting new security fencing around the club.
Repair: landlord to maintain pavilion up to a maximum cost of £5,000 per annum (unless it becomes irreparable in which case the landlord would be entitled to remove it). Tenant to maintain interior/ decorations, grounds and courts.
Public use: facilities to be made available to the public on a basis to be agreed .
A response from the club's Secretary was received on 7 June. This indicated that the club is prepared, in principle, to take on additional financial responsibility for the cost of maintenance and repairs to the pavilion, subject to negotiation. The club also asked for comments about how the free use by the public could work, given that the club would have sole responsibility for maintenance of the playing surface. We will be responding shortly to this point, after which the secretary hopes to be in a position to give a more detailed response to the proposals.
As I mentioned above there are many clubs in Exeter, and virtually all rely on volunteers
to operate. Normally they exist relatively independently, and they are free to ask
for grants from various organisations (including ECC) should they so wish. Where
a club occupies ECC's premises and ECC contributes towards the maintenance and other
costs of those premises, there normally has to be significant access available for
the general public to use those (part or fully) publicly funded facilities. A fairly
comparable example of where people do not need to be members to use such facilities
includes bowling greens and croquet lawns, which are mostly used by club members,
but non-
In spite of your assertions to the contrary, I can assure you that ECC is keen to reach agreement with the club and for it to continue in its much appreciated work. However, the historic situation has changed and both the club and ECC need to react to that, such that there is a fair outcome for all. If there is to be public money routinely being incurred, then ECC will seek to have at least some use of the facilities available to non club members at certain times. In this particular case, it is hoped that some open availability of the courts will help foster a good relationship between the club and the new neighbours it can expect to be interacting with in the future. We have written to the club secretary with some clarification and hope to be able to carry on working with you until we get a conclusion which is mutually satisfactory.
Can I emphasise that the hostility you perceive does not exist. We want the club to survive and thrive, but not at the expense of other, equally important, organisations we support. The fact that at the moment we have not found a mutually agreeable solution to the problem is not per se evidence that the councils' agenda is to remove the club.
Regards
Alan Caig
Head of Leisure & Museums
Exeter City Council
View the Email that prompted this Response