On Thursday night, there was an extra-ordinary meeting of the full council to consider the proposal to allow / conduct a feasibility study into converting a large section of the Pavilion Garden Complex into a food hall.
The meeting had an interesting ‘air’ about it, because the majority of the Conservative’s on the Council were opposing the proposal from the Council’s executive, but the proposal had been lead by Cllr Allan Wells, the Conservative’s executive member for regeneration.
For anyone that has read the Buxton paper’s over recent months, you will have been able to see that there has been strong local opposition to the proposal, and that carried through to the meeting with a quite large number of local residents from Buxton in attendance.
There were a variety of speeches both for and against the proposal, including a number of comments from member of the council that farm or have links to farming that there was just not enough local produce to support the proposals.
However at the end of the day, the whole point of the feasibility study is to consider this project in sufficient depth to answer all the concerns about the project and perhaps ensure as some commented at the meeting, that it will make money as opposed to the continuing the consistent subsidy that the Pavilion Garden’s has required over recent years from the council.
After much debate we finally voted, and I voted along with most of the Labour Group in favour of carrying out the feasibility study. My own reason for this is that the current situation of a continuing subsidy, and an every growing ‘repairs liability’ at the same time as the Glossopdale Public Halls have been closed for requiring a similar arrangement, meant any options to address this must be considered.
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