Preservation Society's financial policy is sound say members

Old Town resident Mrs Phyllis Dunn left the society well over 1m to enable it to continue its work.

The society's policy has been to use the interest on the capital to finance its work in Old Town in particular and the town in general.

Monday's meeting in Manor Barn was invited by chairman Michael Kent to consider whether that policy should be continued or whether the society should dip into its capital.

But he warned that while capital could only be spent once, interest could be made to work for longer.

Members agreed with him and the policy of employing only the interest remains in place.

The society's president, the Rev Canon Dr Edward Bryant, Rector of St Peter's, suggested a flexible approach with capital being touched only when faced with exceptional circumstances.

The debate comes at a time when the society is financing a major scheme in the Old Town Conservation Area.

Over two years it is paying more than 150,000 for out-of-keeping modern street lamps to be replaced with reproduction period-look fittings.

The society had told the county council it was prepared to finance the change when the modern fittings came to the end of their working life.

Members had been aghast to find that the county had ignored this offer and had replaced time-expired modern fittings with further contemporary street lights.

Monday's meeting decided to that secretary Pauline Bullock should write to county hall to ask how much county taxpayers' money had been wasted in erecting new street lights which will be removed as soon as the period fittings funded by the society are operational.

The issue comes at a time when because of the falling stock market, the value of the society's investments has dropped from 1,668m to 1,327m.

The treasurer told members: " The value of shares, as we know, can go down as well as up."

Investment had to be looked at in the long-term. The society was still in profit by 238,000 on the 770,000 purchase cost of its shares.

"What we do as a society is aim to spend our income taking one year on another. If one year we spend less than our income the next year we have something to go forward."

In other years, such as the last one, expenditure exceeded income.

"To that extent, we have mortgaged our future this time."

But, looking at it on a long-term basis, the surpluses had exceeded the deficits over the years.

The society leases and operates Manor Barn. Profit on this had been more than 19,000 in the past year.

The meeting approved the adoption of the treasurer's report. It included a page-long list of the projects the society has supported in the past year.

Totalling more than 189,500 and including 75,200 towards the lights, it included the Old Town May Festival and Christmas celebrations, town publicity, Old Town floral displays, support for a range of town activities ranging from Carnival to the Music Festival, the Rowing Club to the Youth Centre.