Forum demands Pavilion voice

The vote went ahead despite new Rother leader Cllr Carl Maynard advising Tuesday's meeting at Bexhill College that he was opposed to the idea.

Basil Streat had appealed for the Town Forum to have a voice on the working group, which is examining the extent of Rother's future funding for the pavilion.

Mr Streat had told the meeting he was representing the Save Our Seafront campaign group -a point later refuted by chairman Jean Bishop who said SOS had no viewpoint on the issue and that Mr Streat was speaking for himself.

Mr Streat gained applause from representatives of town organisations when he said: "I personally have tried over the past 12 months to make the pavilion trustees realise that they are not satisfying the public of Bexhill as administrators of this building.

"I gave Alan Haydon (pavilion director) seven positive suggestions in November last year of ways in which they could solve their problems and had lengthy talks with Dr Richard Sykes, their chairman.

"Nothing, but nothing, has been done. No reply has been given me. Nothing has been done that I am aware of to improve the situation or to say that they are trying.

"I have written to the Bexhill Observer and have had meetings at my house of people concerned about the building and the cost of running it."

He appealed for the forum to have a place on the working group. "I think we must go into the first meeting with a clear programme.

"The trustees will not be willing, on past experience, to explain or improve their policies and after the next couple of years they will be asked for a lot more money or they will be bankrupt."

Cllr Maynard told the forum Rother had set up a seafront working group and a pavilion working group.

"I would not be in support of a member of the Town Forum being co-opted onto the pavilion working group for the simple reason that every other parish council in Rother could request to have a member of their parish council on the working group.

"It is a function of the working group to look at the long-term funding which Rother - which is currently giving to the tune of half a million pounds a year - might give."

While the working group would not meet in public, he said, when it reported to the scrutiny committee he hoped as many members of the public as possible would be at the meeting.

Forum chairman Ken Hutchinson put the issue of whether the body should request representation on the working group to the vote. Though not all representatives of town organisations raised their hands in favour there were none raised against the move.