Temporary reprieve and hope for Campbeltown Town Hall

When the original 2010-2011 budget proposals were formulated by Argyll and Bute Council and made public, they showed the mothballing of Campbeltown Town Hall from 1st April 2010. This was to continue until a sustainable future use is found for the building by the Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI) programme.

The saving enabled by this move is £13,000 a year.

However, at the final Budget meeting Councillors decided to postpone the date for potentially mothballing of the building to 1st November 2010.

At this time the Town Hall will either be transferred to a sustainable future use within the Townscape Heritage Initiative or mothballed.

The annual saving to the Council of mothballing the building are £13,000.

Postponing the mothballing to a time when – if a concerted move is made to develop a sustainable future for the building within the THI programme – it may never have to happen, reduces the savings to the Council in 2010-2011 from £13,000 to £7,000.

A Council spokeperson says that a full options appraisal for the Town Hall’s sustainable future use is currently underway as part of the Townscape Heritage Initiative programme.

The good news in this is the stay of execution. Had the building been mothballed, the heart would have gone out of it and out of those who may summon the effort to save it.

The bad news is that the Council could even think of putting such a building into the first stage of decline to save the perfectly paltry sum of £13,000 a year.

The Council’s budget for hospitality and catering this year has seen a significant increase. The proposed increase in catering costs for the Head of Facility Services was 28.27%. Even considering this is hard to defend in the current circumstances against many of the cuts the Council has made – and that includes Campbetown Town Hall.

It is a litmus test of a vigorous administration that it does not lose the will to maintain its assets and to invest in them. We understand that a problem with Campbeltown Town Hall relates to Health and Safety regulations which limit the number of people who can, say, be admitted to a coffee morning; and also to a kitchen which, in common with many in older public buildings, has been condemned. These are not insoluble difficulties.

A town of substantial architectural character like Campbeltown needs its unique building stock like, for example, the Town Hall, which is like no other – and like the Royal Hotel, to sit alongside masterly contemporary buildings like Aqualibrium. It needs to demonstrate a confident embrace of its past beside an adventurous stride into the future.

Campbeltown does not need magnificently eccentric architectural statements like its Town Hall to be left to look progressively neglected and seedy. This building steps out into the very street, at once dominant and curious. It cannot be ignored – and it cannot be hidden.

The great hope in the situation is that Argyll and Bute Community Planning Partnership has been awarded more than £210,000, through European funding, for Campbeltown Town Hall.

This money has been ring-fenced, held against a further application process to be gone through before it is released – or withheld if the application is not good enough to succeed.

There can be no more powerful prompt to Campbeltown folk to get the thinking caps on. It is in everyone’s interests to find a long term solution to the future of this historic building and, by doing so, to secure the available funds.