An extra Rye Town Council (RTC) meeting was held last Monday, February 6 and a principal item on the agenda was a discussion of the swimming pool report following the meeting between RTC, Rother District Council (RDC) and Freedom Leisure (FL), which Rye News commented on last week.
It was immediately apparent that councillors were far from happy with both the attitude of Rother and the amount of information - or lack of it - that was coming from Freedom Leisure.
Despite some exhaustive work by Rye's advisor, William Coatesworth and the cost estimates that he produced, there are still no detailed figures for the pool coming from Freedom Leisure. Nor was there any indication at this stage, that Rother was prepared to take any action against FL for non-performance of their contract if indeed, the contract allows them to do so.
In addition to the pool costs, there is maintenance required to the roof of the building and one councillor suggested that there may also be some capital expenses relating to machinery repairs before the pool could be recommissioned. This was admittedly a guess but, if correct, could also perhaps have influenced the decision to close the pool with so little notice.
Anger was expressed that if Bexhill needed thousands of pounds for the erection of bus shelters in the town and on the sea front, as well as millions in addition to the Levelling Up grant for the De La Warr Pavilion, the money could be found. But if a fraction of that is required for a worthwhile purpose in Rye, Rother were unable, or unwilling, to find it. One councillor with detailed knowledge of the internal workings of the District Council pointed out that not only was it a complete administrational mess currently, but with 18 of the elected district councillors representing Bexhill wards, it was not surprising that decisions on spending were biased in that direction.
It was pointed out that Rother had never wanted the leisure centre to be built, had little interest in it and, although not specifically stated, the inference certainly was that this could account for the lack of firm action to date with Freedom Leisure and that few tears would be shed if the centre closed completely.
On the subject of possible closure, a strong plea was made by Councillor Pat Hughes that plans should now start to be made to consider the possibility of taking over the Leisure Centre, should closure be threatened, and examine how it could be financed and run for the benefit of the town.
The discussion closed with a motion, carried unanimously, that the deputy mayor, Councillor Stuart should be included in future meetings and negotiations.
Public facilities
Whilst the Leisure Centre inevitably took up the greater part of the meeting, also up for discussion was devolved services, i.e. those services to Rye carried out by Rother or contractors employed by Rother. Specific reference was made to the state of the toilets by the station. These are old, usually dirty and generally badly maintained.
One councillor suggested that the best thing would be to demolish them and build anew and there was further discussion of how money could be raised, possibly from train and bus operators in the event that Rye took the toilet building over. However some councillors felt that this was impractical and that as Rother collected a substantial amount of money every year from the town, they should be left in no doubt that the upkeep of the toilets was their responsibility, and that a firm representation should be made that they and their contractors should carry out that responsibility in a proper and diligent manner.
Tourism support
A more positive note was provided by the deputy town clerk. Following the closure of the visitor information point, she introduced a detailed paper on a strategy to support the tourist industry and visitors to the town.
This included some 26 recommendations to help tourists find their way round the town, discover places of interest, walks, cycle paths, beaches and the sea. This would also involve locals businesses - shops, pubs, restaurants for example and which would be to their benefit as well as the tourist's.
The council agreed to adopt this and interested parties can obtain further details from the Town Hall.
Town crier competition
As we mentioned recently the Hastings National Town Criers Championship may no longer be held and a report from the Rye town crier, Paul Goring advised that this was moving from a possibility to a probability. He suggested that if the general interest that the championship attracted in Hastings could be transferred to Rye, it would be a significant help to our tourist industry. In addition, not only were the costs relatively small, but with sponsorship from local businesses, there could well be no cost to the council.
This initiative was warmly encouraged and the council agreed that if the championship did indeed find that it needed a new home, Rye should make every effort to take it on and make it a success. With the other problems facing the town at the moment, this was a welcome a positive step.
And finally...
We have commented before on the absence of our Rother district councillors at town council meetings. Once again their seats were empty and while there were were no reports expected from either of them, a large part of the meeting revolved around events connected with Rother to which they might have been able to add useful comments.
