Following a meeting of Coleshill Town Council on 17th June 2015, local Conservative town councillors have voted to save the Visitor’s Centre and the Community Hub.
Both local facilities are currently run by the Coleshill Community Partnership, a private registered charity who had approached the Town Council for assistance after running into financial difficulty. Local Conservatives had previously expressed concern that the that the charity would have insufficient revenue streams to manage both the Community Hub and the Visitor’s Centre and were concerned at a request made by the trustees for further financial assistance from the council. However, following the exclusion of several councillors due to a conflict of interest, the request was granted by Conservative councillors. Explaining the decision, Councillor Mark Jones said: “I am really concerned about the financial viability of the Visitor’s Centre and the Community Hub, however I feel that these are important community facilities and we should do everything we can to keep them
open. That is why I voted to support further financial assistance to Coleshill Community Partnership, on the condition that full accounts are made available by November 2015. One of my pledges before the election was to campaign for greater transparency on public spending and that is why I have been pushing for these accounts to be published for several months now.”
Fellow Conservative, Councillor Adam Richardson added: “We have approved the grant this time as we don’t want to see the Community Hub close, but will be looking at ways to ensure that the project is viable in the long term as we don’t think it is fair to expect taxpayers to fund a private charity any longer than necessary.”