Complex issues at community venture

I am writing in response to the five letters that appeared in last week’s Postbag.

It is clear that Bath Place Community Venture is in the middle of a very complex situation. D.M.Douglas and Marie Willington both raised key points around the importance of preserving our public assets for future generations to enjoy.

Obviously, the scope for the Old Library to the community is enormous and we recently have been offered £500,000 towards the purchase by the Architectural Heritage Fund and the potential support of other national funders. To our dismay, we have had to stop spending on preserving the building, although we have spent roughly £70,000 to date plus countless hours of voluntary labour.

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As it is not “our” building we could no longer afford to spend our charitable funds, much as we would love to, without being absolutely sure that it wouldn’t go to waste.

To Chris Basset, who sings praises to the development on Newbold Terrace, I would humbly suggest that there is a quantifiable difference between restoring Regency flats and carving up a well-loved, culturally significant and Grade II listed D1 non-residential institution into 28 luxury flats, great as the work that TAG does may be.

To the two unnamed letter writers who raise the point of BPCV failing to object to the SEL licences, if we have fallen short of expectations then we must apologise.

We have been on a treacherous footing and have plenty on our plate as we try to negotiate our current position. It must be also understood that when Bath Place was providing services to vulnerable women and providing housing advice we were receiving funding from local authorities to run those services.

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This may sound like a massive cop-out to some readers but in an ironic twist we have had to consider two properties as an alternative to The Old Library:

One is a commercial building located directly underneath Shades and the other is a vacant lot across the street from Amara... - Clayton Denwood, Site Supervisor, Bath Place Community Venture, The Old Library, Leamington.