Your voice counts in Bournemouth (From Bournemouth Echo)

Mr.and Mrs, Hilliam can of course speak for themselves but I suspect that like many other residents in Bournemouth they felt the decision to demolish the Winter Gardens was the last nail in the image of what Bournemouth once was seen as - a town known for its fine orchestra and cultural reputation

With vision this year marking not just the 200th anniversary of the foundling of Bournemouth but also the 200th anniversary of the birth of two great romantic composers Chopin and Schumann . could have been but need I go on ---

We are staggered by Cllr. MacLoughlin's statement, we quote,
"Since 2007, the Conservatives have encouraged greater public involvement in decision-making by local public bodies.
Wherever the Have Your Say logo appears, it encourages people to influence the decisions which most affect them.
Recent examples include the consultation on the future of the Imax, the council’s budget savings and the Town Centre Area Action Plan.
We are also about to consult on the Slades Farm master plan.
All this is in the spirit of openness and accountability."

This has not been our experiance with the Council and the Leaders. If this is all true, will you please arrange a public meeting where you and Cllr. Beesley can put to the community the benefits to them of the "integrated services hub" plan to site in Boscombe. Currently 470 people have submitted objections to your planning application to demolish the BCCA site and build the hub. We - the Friends of the BCCA - have advocated to you we share the site with the hub so that all the community might benefit. Our planning consultants and architects inform us there is more than enough room on site for both. You know perfectly well the criteria for the £2.3 million grant for the hub allows and encourages both the hub and commmunity centre should be on site together and can both benefit from the capital fund.
Also you know the 2 listed Victorian rooms you offered us are not financially viable as you insist we find the funds for a separate entrance and reception; to install separate central heating, gas, water, electric, to remove asbestos and to refurbish. You also know funders will not provide funds for all this when we can only get income from two rooms only.
How will the wider community of Boscombe benefit from the £2.3 million?
How will the £2.3 million bring tourist to the area or aid area regeneration?
Our business plan - which you praised - can do both of the above. Why will you not allow the community of Boscombe to benefit
from the £2.3 million when it desperately needs something positive to aid it?
We have sent you an email today - again - requesting that this time you arrange a public meeting where this may be discussed openly and fully by all the community. So far all our requests for an open and frank discussion have been denied. So if the "integrated services hub" is a wonderful thing for Boscombe, please do not hide its light under a barrel - do enlighten the community and let the community ask questions at a public meeting. It was done for Shelley Manor, why not the BCCA?

We should have mentioned a copy of Bournemouth Council's application for the £2.3 million grant and the criteria for the grant are both on our website www.boscombearts.org
.uk and if anyone is a little confused by their application form, Bournemouth Council changed the site on the grant application to the BCCA site. The Council changed the site without asking permission from the previous government, who gave the grant. Mr. Mark Hayward who gave the grant from The Dept. for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and still oversees the grant now that it is being dealt with by the Partnerships for Schools was not happy Bournemouth Council decided off their own back to change sites to one so radically different but decided they should have the opportunity to see what they could do. Will Bournemouth Council be allowed to keep this £2.3 million now they are still not adhering to the criteria in so many ways? Will this be yet another debacle over mismanaging funds like the surf reef etc.? So, Cllr. MacLoughlin a "spirit of openess and accountability" would be so refreshing - words are cheap, its actions that mean anything at all.

Bearing in mind the secrecy of the investigation in to Cllr McLaughlin by the Standards Board of the original cover up of his activities on the Council computer, and the quite dreadful way that the BCCA Managemant Team have been treated, I applaud the comments above from them.

A Public Meeting is now essential to discuss these issues which affect the whole Boscombe Community. Once its gone its gone for ever.

As to Cllr Mc Luagh'in suggesting that he operates in an open way, I think two words come to mind. Brass and Neck. He needs to prove his self rightious comments with action.

Mr Mcloughlin

You know, though choose to ignore, that the Liberal Democrats negotiated with the Friends of the Winter Gardens for two years of their four year term. They offered the property at a peppercorn rent, and despite promising on numerous occasions to obtain funds to run it, the Friends failed to do so.

The replacement plans supported by the University, The BSO, Arts England and many more were all agreed and ready for tender when you took over. What did you do, preferred a car park and told all the backers that you were not interested.

And you are depriving Boscombe of a Community Centre, while the council subsidises those at Kinson, Moordown, Beaumont, Townsend, Muscliff an Ensbury Park. Kinson alone has received almost £250,000 over the last three years.

You have nothing to brag about

What a complete tit!