Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council’s Full Council meeting at the Porland Community Hub on Tuesday saw Councillors once again struggle to decide what to do about the White Elephant Enclosure Problem (WEEP), before deciding that they need more time to make a decision.
Having reviewed the decision made by the White Elephant Enclosure Mismanagement Committee at their recent Extraordinary Meeting, which saw that committee accept the recommendations put forward in the Special Report by the Consultants employed purely to look at ways to increase revenue in the venue, rather than considering any alternative options, the Full Council agreed with the Mismanagement Committee that they should implement the suggested changes.
Official Fun Police Officer, Cllr Patsy Knickers proposed that Councillors form yet another of the popular BeFuddled Party Working Groups with this one set up to think and talk about the WEE saying “Whilst I am normally against residents having fun, I feel that we could use this opportunity to have some fun ourselves. I propose that we, as Councillors, spend some time visiting every entertainment venue in the country so that we can get an idea of how they are run.
I propose that we spend a year thinking and talking about that, before coming to any decision. I think allowing ourselves a year is fair. The BeFuddled Party has only had a year in charge of SaD Town Council and, whilst we could have already spent that year looking into the WEEP, because we had no idea of the scale of the problem nor what our responsibilities as Councillors involved we have failed to do anything about it all.
I believe the residents who complain about us spending ever-increasing sums of the money will be staved off for a year if we tell them we need more time.”
Illiberal Party and WEE Mismanagement Committee member Cllr Julia Slurry agreed saying “I think we need to give ourselves the chance to get it right. The WEE has only been run by the council for over 10 years and I don’t think that has been enough time for us to make it a success.”
Fellow Illiberal Party and WEE Mismanagement Committee member Catty Staring said “Squire Teflon has told me to say that we should take on board the findings of the Consultants.
I know that we should be looking at ways to reduce the costs for residents, and nothing in this report suggests that we will be able to do that, but at least it will give us an opportunity to hide the facts and carry on as we have before using the report as cover when it all goes horribly wrong again.
Over ten years simply isn’t long enough. We need to take even more time trying to implement even more ridiculous ideas before considering any other options.”
Squire Teflon said “The £90,000 figure quoted in the Special Report as the amount that will be needed in town council subsidies next year is, of course, totally fictitious and a number plucked out of thin air, but if we bandy it about often enough during the rest of this year, residents may think that that is all it’s going to cost them next year.
Obviously, that figure is still around 50-60 percent more than the amount given by the other councils quoted in the report, but it sounds a lot better than the actual amount which will be needed for the WEE in the budget for 2024/25.
I will do or say anything to keep my WEE in Town Council hands. You may not know this but I personally paid Sadgebore District Council a pound from my pocket money to save the WEE for the nation, when they were looking to offload it to the first sucker that came along because Sadgebore felt it wasn’t financial viable for them to keep it. Since then I have personally overseen Town Council funding of close to £1 million to keep it. I wouldn’t support giving my WEE to someone else to run as a successful venue when we can just carry on making a hash of running it as we have done for the last 10 years.
The running cost figure in the report is based on the current best figure of 40-50% audience rates, shows at the WEE have very rarely been over this figure, with most only achieving 20% or lower. However, if we pretend that there’s a possibility of 100% sell out shows every night of the week we can jiggly around with the fictitious figures and carry on as we have been doing, it’s worked perfectly well in the past, so there’s no reason to think that it won’t work on the future.
We must also remember that, although the Corvid Pandemic has been over for more than a year, we can continue to use that as an excuse for the low ticket sales for at least another year, if not two.”
Illiberal Councillor Al deValues said “We need to remember that the idea of a successful WEE is all in the mind. Mostly in the mind of one Councillor who has a very small mind.
The report suggests employing a Smalltown Culture and Arts Manager (SCAM). We had one of those and she had some very good ideas, all of which were tried and all of which failed to decrease the required subsidy to keep the WEE going.However it is entirely possible that in cloud cuckoo land we can employee another SCAM and get a different result.”
I am not sure how handing the WEE over to someone else with experience of running this sort of venue and making it a success would work. It sounds rather complicated and I don’t think we as Councillors can comprehend something as confusing as that.”
WEE Mismanagement Committee Chair, Deputy Dictator Sherry said “It’s a problem, there’s no doubt about that. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. How do we best keep on doing the same thing, with the same result, but spin it as a success? If we could work out the answer to that then the problem would be solved.“
Even the normally absent and/or silent Working Men’s Party’s Cllr Ben Leftcame got in on the act saying” “Since we are all trying to get our names in the local media I would like to add that even though I represent the people of Dullbridge who don’t use or visit the WEE I think we should keep it under our control
We should also take the time to learn as much as we can about tenders and how they work, because none of us have any idea about that sort of thing either. In fact, we don’t really have any idea about how a lot of things work, this is all new to us. “
Cllr Robert NotBothered raised the issue of the seats in the WEE saying “We need to urgently investigate the possibility of spending more money on the seats. Although we have already received grant funding to replace them, the previous SCAM believed that refurbishing them was a better option, which didn’t prove to be the case.
We will need either the new Smalltown Provisional Arts Manager (SPAM1) or the Smalltown Permanent Arts Manager (SPAM2) to seek further grant funding from a source which hasn’t already give us money to do this.”
Squire Teflon seconded Cllr Knickers’ proposal to hire a coach to take Councillors on days out visiting other venues and to spend yet another year trying to achieve the impossible.
Ten councillors voted in favour of the SaD Councillors’ Play Away Days with one voting against, four unable to make a decision and three failing to turn up to the meeting in the first place.