With the agenda once again released in contravention of the ‘Three Clear Working Days’ rule of the Local Government Act – this time it was two clear days, rather than the normal one day, so it’s getting closer – residents of Smalltown and Dullbridge only have until 12 noon tomorrow if they wish to comment on the Top Secret Consultants Top Secret Report to the White Elephant Enclosure Mismanagement Committee which is available to read on the Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council website.
As the SaDTC Top Secret Human Resources Top Secret Sub-Committee has already agreed the wording for an advertisement for the position of the Smalltown Culture and Arts Manager, it would seem that an agreement to implement the recommendations in the report is a forgone conclusion and all that remains to be done is the rubber stamping by the WEE Mismanagement Committee.
The offer from Mr Padraig Irishh, owner of the Blitz Cinema and other entertainment venues in the South West, has been dismissed before it even made it to the discussion stage. As this is the second time that Mr Irishh’s approach to SaDTC has been dismissed, it looks as if residents will be lumbered with paying ever-increasing Council tax payments for at least another five years.
The report from the consultants looked at three other comparable venues in the area and concluded that the WEE’s ‘expenditure, with new budgets, is roughly in line with similar-scaleorganisations in the region’ , and that ‘Post-Corvid, income has improved; however, it remains lower than in other venues’.
So let’s take a closer look at those figures. The other three venues are all in neighbouring Borset -The Borchester Arts, The Maritime Theatre, Lime Beegees and Bradport Arts Centre (BAC).
Of these, Borchester can seat 250, Maritime 220 and BAC 194 (with the WEE seating 198) . All three are owned and run as charitable ventures, with each having a board of Trustees made up of members who have experience not just of running successful businesses, but in some cases a successful theatre and community art space, rather than an inexperienced bunch of Town Councillors.
All three offer the sort of high-brow entertainment which the majority of residents in Smalltown and Dullbridge shun. You won’t find many tribute bands on offer at these establishments, instead it’s all about the latest art-house films, top comedians, Shakespeare and folk music. All the type of events which, when tried at the WEE, have more often than not failed to sell even half the seats.
As an illustration, on Wednesday the WEE screening of the Theatre National Live play based on the popular television series ‘Teabag’ had sold two tickets. By Friday morning, the day it was scheduled to be shown, the WEE website listed the performance as ‘Sold Out’, the likelihood of the remaining 68 tickets having been sold in the intervening two days is about as likely as Horace Monsoon being made Prime Minister again on Monday.
So it’s possibly that, realising that someone would have to open the doors, switch the lights on and remain on the premises, a decision was taken to cancel the screening.
Turning to those figures and, despite being fourseats smaller, in 2022 BAC achieved an income of £383,748, which included £53,441 of grant funding with an additional £45,000 (less than 20 percent of the total income), given by the local authority. Central to the fund raising effort is the annual Bradport Literary Prize, an ‘international creative writing competition’, established in 1973 and which in 2022 contributed some £184,000 to the BACS coffers. Box office ticket sales were £53,000
However, expenditure for BACS totalled £369,200 in 2022 – those literary competitions don’t come cheap, but hey! BAC can afford it and still have a profit of £14,000 in the bank.
Borchester Arts and the Maritime Theatre both received local council funding to the tune of £27,000 each. Income from box office sales totalled £75,000 and £101,000 respectively, with expenditure of £198,000 at Borchester and £164,000 at the Maritime. Borchester also benefitted from £101,000 from donations and sponsorship, whilst the Maritime received a Council for the Arts grant of £73,000 and also gained £70,000 from weddings and beer sales.
In comparison the WEE swallowed up £142,000 of SaD Town Council money, towards a total expenditure for the year of £201,000 and achieved an income of just £31,000. So in effect Smalltown and Dullbridge Council tax payers pay over three times as much in order to achieve half the income.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. The Consultants believe that in the future it should be possible to keep expenditure ar the same £201,000 level but to also achieve grant funding from the Council for Arts of £60,000, put the Friends of the WEE to work obtaining a potential £25,000 in unidentified grants, donations and from fundraising, and by charging everyone extra, this could see the WEE achieve an income of £50,000 – a total of £135,000 meaning that Smalltown and Dullbridge residents will be asked to contribute a mere £75,000.
Do those figures stand up to even the vaguest scrutiny? No. Without a properly costed plan on how to raise income and attract larger audience figures and users the WEE will always cost residents more money than any possible value, and therefore, benefits they receive.
The (No Longer) Top Secret Report fails to tell us anything we didn’t know already, having watched the goings-on at the WEE for almost ten years, and seeing the Town Council subsidy increase year-on-year until SaDTC spent £1.00 of every £5 raised from Council tax. Surely we can’t keep watching the WEE continue to fail whilst the Councillors try to persuade is that it’s a valuable asset which benefits us all? We really aren’t that stupid. The user numbers equate to 0.5 percent of the population, 99.5 percent pay for that 0.5 percent to enjoy themselves singing, dancing and acting. Is there another tax-payer subsidised hobby anywhere?
Please… It might not be too late to bite Mr Irishh’s hand off. Or perhaps even consider letting the WEE users form their own Management Committee. They can’t make a worse job of it than the successive Councillors who have made up the WEE Mismanagement Committee over the years.