WEST Somerset District Council is poised to fall headlong into new controversy as it attempts to salvage plans for a civic centre and offices development amid rows over the choice of a new site and in the face of an impossibly tight deadline. As reported exclusively in last week's Free Press, Somerset County Council announced it was withdrawing its plans for a new library within the centre and pulling out of a previously struck deal with the district authority for a partnership development scheme on land stretching from Vulcan Road to the market/railway site. But with the district bent on pursuing its dream and its hope of turning Vulcan Road into a retail park to raise millions of pounds, it seems the favoured site for the revised scheme, minus the library, is Minehead's rapidly deteriorating Aquasplash leisure centre - as suggested by the Free Press last week. However, as the project managers of the now abandoned development, EC Harris, began an urgent investigation of its suitability, critics warned of a public outcry if the swimming pool had to close before a new one could be built. And opposition councillors on the Tory-controlled council are insisting that a previous decision by the authority to centralise the offices on the Vulcan Road car park if the market/railway site did not come to fruition, still stands. Cllr Simon Stokes said he refuted any suggestion that councillors had voted to site the new offices "in the Vulcan Road area" rather than specifically the car park. And he said he would vehemently oppose any move to close Aquasplash even for a year simply to give the council new accommodation. "Bearing in mind that everything previously on the table has gone pear shaped, this really is the time to take a deep breath and stop before we rush into anything else," said Cllr Stokes, who chairs the newly formed performance committee, responsible for monitoring the council's actions. "A swimming pool is about the only thing we provide for the community and we should not even be contemplating being without one, for however long. "If we push ahead regardless with our plans, we run the danger of achieving nothing." Council leader Cllr Steven Pugsley refused to confirm that Aquasplash was the front runner in the hunt for a new site but said, if it was put forward as a possibility, he would be "very reluctant" to see the pool closed before a new one was built. The council has long hoped that a new pool could be incorporated in a proposed new lifelong learning and leisure project, recently renamed Exmoor Horizons, on land close to the West Somerset Community College. But that scheme, which has been in the pipeline in varying forms for some years, has yet to secure all its funding and has no guarantee of becoming a reality by the hoped-for date of 2008. Cllr Pugsley admitted that the decision to abandon the partnership scheme on the market/railway site would undoubtedly delay the authority's centralisation plans and put back the September 2006 target for completion of the new civic centre. But he said having a pause in the project was not an option. The council is hoping to win European grant aid to build the speculative business offices and trade units alongside its civic centre but the cash is time limited. Any bid would have to be approved by December, meaning the council would have to firm up its plans by September at the very latest. The authority also needs some of the cash it hopes to raise from selling the Vulcan Road car park for the speculative development but is still awaiting verification of a flawed consultants' report to prove the need for more retail outlets. Even if it gets the evidence it needs to allow an edge-of-town shopping park to be created at Vulcan Road, it is likely to face lengthy planning objections to the proposal and a possible public inquiry. Cllr Pugsley said he recognised that a previous council resolution to build the civic centre at Vulcan Road if the market/railway site failed still stood. Controversially, the Aquasplash site is seen by some councillors and officers to be broadly in the spirit of the resolution because it is in the Vulcan Road area. But Cllr Pugsley said circumstances had changed because the value of the Vulcan Road car park had risen since the earlier resolution was agreed. However, he said that despite any previous decisions he felt it was essential that the whole issue was put before the council again. He said he hoped to be able to reveal a potential new site for the development at the full council meeting at the end of June. If not, a special meeting could be called for early or mid-July. "The commitment to centralise our offices in Minehead is still there," he said. "We cannot continue to leech money by running our business from two separate bases eight miles apart." Cllr Pugsley said he was unable to say how much money had been lost on the aborted development - estimated by some to run into hundreds of thousands of pounds - but had instructed officers to recoup as much as possible. "The figures will appear in the council's accounts in due course. Much of the work and the research that has already been carried out will not be wasted. "But as long as we have a capital project to set these costs against, they will not fall as a revenue charge on Council Tax payers. "Everything is in the melting pot at the moment and it is too early to say anything definite but the pieces of the jigsaw, which have been thrown in the air, are beginning to fall into place." Cllr Pugsley said money from the sale of the Vulcan Road car park would be invested across the district, hopefully to help provide amongst other things, a new swimming pool and for the regeneration of Williton and Minehead's town centre. "This isn't a case of selling the family silver. It is a matter of reinvesting the silver in gold to realise the value of an under-used asset."
