Trustees of a Gaunless Valley community centre say they may have to shut the venue after having their parish council funding slashed.
Randolph Community Centre officers are so angered by members of Evenwood and Barony Parish Council that they have banned them from holding meetings in the building and have told them to stick their £5,000 grant offer where the “sun doesn’t shine”.
However, parish councillors say the Local Government Act prevents them from giving the £35,000 that the centre’s trustees had asked for. Last year the centre received a grant of £37,000 from the parish council.
At the council’s budget meeting clerk to the parish council Keith Murray-Hetherington explained that councils are limited to offering grant funding of only £11.10 per elector.
He added: “Which is £20,512 which the council can lawfully assign to grants and donations for community organisations this year.”
After councillors agreed to support the Randolph Social Welfare Ground with a £9,000 grant for the upkeep of its pavilion and set aside a further £2,000 for a small grants scheme, this left only £9,512 for any other grants.
The community took over the running of the Randolph Centre from Durham County Council nine years ago, when the parish council agreed to significantly increase its precept from about £17,000 to more than £60,000 to help cover the its initial costs.
This took Evenwood from one of the cheapest villages in Teesdale, to one of the most expensive, with only residents in Barnard Castle and Gainford charged more tax by their parish representatives.
A resident who attended the Evenwood Parish Council budget meeting said residents had been promised this was a temporary arrangement. She said: “I want to know how long this precept is going to go on for. We were told for five years we would pay a precept to get it off the ground and get it running, it has gone up to ten years now.
“I went to the [Randolph Centre] AGM. They had no treasurer, they had no secretary, they don’t do minutes. It is shocking.”
The parish council agreed to offer a grant of £5,000 provided trustees provide audited accounts and bank statements.
Cllr James Cosslett said: “In the last nine years the parish council has given £360,000 – I think we are right to ask for bank statements.”
However, Randolph Centre trustee Barbara Nicholson said all requirements of the Charity Commission are being met by the centre’s officers.
She added: “There are three documents we give to the charity commissioners. One is the accounts, one is the auditor’s report and one is the chair’s report. The chair’s report is the minutes. That is all they need.”
She said centre manager John Bogle does the work of a treasurer and secretary from the trustees. Mr Bogle complained the parish council should have announced its intentions to slash the grant much earlier to give the centre time to brace itself.
He said: “Last year they should have said this will be your last year. This is the thanks you get. They have got no communication skills whatsoever.”
He argues the centre is entitled to the cash because of the agreement made nine years ago.
Mr Bogle said: “They have made it look like I have gone cap in hand asking for £35,000. That is not the case because what they have failed to do is say on their website ‘our precept is £65,500 and £37,000 is the (Randolph Centre’s)’.
“If that precept last year was £65,500 and £37,000 was the Randolph Centre’s, how come they are still [asking for a £62,000 precept this year while giving the centre nothing].”
Ms Nicholson conceded there had been an agreement to reduce the centre’s reliance on the grant over time, but this had been hampered by Covid and other events. She said: “Yes, we should have reduced it more, but we kept playing catch up all the way. We have started to reduce it now.”
She described the chances of the Randolph Community Centre surviving another year as ‘nil’.
Trustee Becky Land said it would be a huge loss to Evenwood. She added: “You’ve got your youth and history groups, then the veterans’ group, it’s brilliant it is full. It was doubled booked the other week – it is thriving”.
In return for reducing its grant provision over the next year Evenwood and Barony Council agreed to reduce the tax it asks from residents by five per cent.
In a statement to the Mercury centre manager John Bogle said: “As the manager of The Randolph Community Centre I would like to thank the residents of Evenwood and in the Barony for their contribution via the parish precept over the past nine years.
“Nine years ago the precept was increased significantly to establish the centre and special permission was given to the parish from Durham County Council to do this.
“The parish council have made the decision to no longer pass on that increased precept even though efforts were made to reduce it, as a result the centre will no longer be a financial burden on our community and in reality your precept should come down to close to where it was nine years ago, which can only be something we look upon as a positive for our community.
“The centre does face an uncertain future but looks upon this challenge with hope that it can be overcome quickly and we will be able to continue to be able to host the brilliant and vibrant groups which use it, including a thriving nursery that feeds our primary schools in Ramshaw and Evenwood, our youth clubs and so much more and support them in providing essential work that benefits our community.”
