Open Letter to the Cheese & Grain Trustees and the People of Frome
As someone who was involved in the first petitions during the early 1990s recession for Frome to have its own community centre to help bring the town out of the gloom it was in (remember how the town was boarded up back then?), I have since watched with pride how all sorts of people within the town have, with the support of the local councils and mayor, made the Cheese & Grain a reality. And what a success this project (made by the people of Frome for the people of Frome - and beyond) has been, attracting local, national and international talent to the town as well as providing a venue for a host of local activities. Furthermore, the Cheese & Grain has helped to put Frome on the map by acting as a profit-generating honeypot development for the town by attracting visitors who spend within other businesses in our local economy.
How disturbing it is in this recesssion to hear that the town council is taking over the Cheese & Grain without any democratic reference to the townspeople. We should be really anxious for the following reasons:
1. The lease of the Cheese & Grain was designed to be open and flexible to allow the fullest possible range of community activities and services. This is now under threat if our community centre is run with the blinkered vision of ‘cuts’, rather than with the wisdom of an investment that brings benefits to all the townspeople. For instance, will the markets and other community and family activities that do not make as much money as the gigs be safe in a climate of cuts?
2. Surely, it is illegal for a Council to take over a charity without any mandate?
3. Without passing offence to the councillors, I fear that our vibrant community centre - which gets its energy from the people creating their own projects and promotions - will lose its vibrancy with the dull municipal weight of councillors imposing their bureacratic tendencies on our local culture and arts. Councillors are not good at organising a party - this is the peoples’ job as this is our street culture, not theirs, though it is their job to support and facilitate our community activities rather than run them.
4. Will the Council allow us to have a proper debate about the future of our community centre before ‘imposing’ their cuts? Alternatively, we should have a local referendum on the Cheese & Grain as this is our money and our community resource, not the property of the Council.
5. We don’t need councillors to run our arts and culture. What we need the councillors to do is attract some of the new transport infrastructure funds that Cameron and the coalition are promising so that Frome can build a new train station at the rear of the Cheese & Grain - call it Frome Central if you like - that will drop visitors right into the centre of our vibrant market town. Think about it, in ten years time the price of oil will be prohibitively expensive so visitors to the town will decline. We need to re-instate the circular (elecrified) rail route that Beeching cut (Frome-Radstock-Norton-Wells-Glastonbury-Pilton/Festival-Cranmore-Frome), with links to Bath, Westbury and London, if we are to ensure the future of our town at the end of the era of oil.
6. If the councillors are using the excuse of the cuts and a shortage of £35,000 per year to strong-arm their way into taking over our community centre, I would like to remind them that it is our £35,000 that we willingly pay for a consequent huge ‘return on our investment’. If money really is a problem (which I understand is not the case), then the council can ask for (or impose) a contribution from the out of town supermarkets - who take millions from the town each year - for the development of community projects within the town centre that they are denuding. Also, it will only take about £1.25 per Frome resident per year to raise the £35,000!
7. So the Town Council wants to waste vast amounts of our cash converting part of the Cheese & Grain into plush offices for themselves, which will only add a grey-suited drabness to our community and entertainment centre - why can’t they make do and mend (like the rest of us) with their existing premises? Any cash invested into the Cheese & Grain should not be used for councillors’ benefits and should instead be used to enhance the building’s and townspeoples’ facilities with the following:
7.1. An extended mezzanine floor
7.2. Better acoustics.
7.3. Audio-visual recording and band practice facilities.
7.4. Facilities for Frome FM, 3 Towns Radio and national broadcasters such as 6 Music and Radio 1, to broadcast significant events to the world and help further Frome’s remarkable cultural economy.
7.5. A hospitality room for visiting performers linked to the radio broadcasting facilities (rather than administrative council offices!).
7.6. An exterior balcony/stage can be added to the building above the entrance for future amazing outdoor events.
7.7. Marketing & promotion is needed, not just for the Cheese & Grain itself but also the activities and people that make up our small town economy.
7.8. Energy efficient underfloor heating and further insulation which will bring a return on investment in future years.
7.9. Development cash can be raised from current taxpayer sources, from Lottery Funds, from fundraising activities, from ticket prices, from the local supermarkets and businesses and from the savings that the council WILL make by making do with their existing premises (if the council really do need new offices, these can be included later - and for free! - as part of the new developments planned for Garsdale and NOT at the heart of our Community & Entertainment Centre).
7.10. There is scope for extending the building with a veranda type extension into the tarmac area by the Canoe Club. Here, lunches and teas can be served alfresco for the pleasure of all during the summer months, maybe with someone playing a clarinet in a village green type atmosphere!
8. It has taken time and energy to build up the dedicated team that runs the Cheese & Grain so well. Can the Council assure us that it will not dismantle the Cheese & Grain Team as it will be inefficent and ineffective in cash, energy and time to replace this enthusiastic team with a new one?
And finally, on the bigger democracy picture, we are paying for Frome Town Council, Mendip District Council, Somerset County Council, the Westminster Parliament, the European Parliament and the United Nations. If as a result of us supporting these institutions with our hard earned money, they act like the Sherrif of Nottingham and take away our local community centre, local markets, local library (which is under threat) and the vibrancy of our town centre and economy, we may begin to wonder just what exactly we are supporting these institutions for with our hard earned taxes. These are our community and local services and this is our local economy that we must protect and enhance - these resources are too important to become the personal plaything for our elected representatives.
Tim Ashby
P.S. Frome invented the ‘Big Society’ by creating its own Community Centre in the 1990s!
Tim Ashby
P.S. Frome invented the ‘Big Society’ by creating its own Community Centre in the 1990s!
This letter was written in response to Frome Town Council announcing it was going to take over our Community Centre at the Cheese & Grain in Frome, and was published in full in the Somerset Standard on 4 November 2010.