SIR — As co-owner of Minehead’s old hospital, I am one of the parties deeply disappointed by the town council’s recent decision not to support the old hospital scheme.

I have, though, been much heartened by the outpouring of public support since then and feel I need to respond.

Whilst the council is correct that there is presently no lease in place, there are actually some very sensible, sound reasons for this which clearly now need to be explained, although for sure it would have been much better if they had been properly discussed and taken into consideration by the council before making its decision.

The need for a lease is an obvious, basic requirement on which the owners and Minehead Development Trust wholly agree with the council. It has to be there in order to protect all parties involved including, unquestionably, the public purse and of course the buildings themselves.

The necessary papers have long been prepared; more or less the only thing needed now is to sign on the dotted line.

Now there are three fundamental issues holding us back from completing this final task:

l Firstly, perfectly rightly, responsibly and prudently, the trust cannot sign up until the very last minute in order that it should not commit to incurring ongoing site running costs on an empty site (eg insurance, utility bills, security costs, running repairs, emergency repairs etc etc) until it has absolute confidence about availability of monies coming in to be able to pay (until the lease is signed, those costs are actually being met by my co-owner and I – which of course I have no issues with, so long as it helps the cause and gets us all going where we want to go).

l Secondly, there is the issue of planning/listed buildings permission. Obviously the trust cannot operate the site without permissions for change of use etc and although our joint application was submitted last year, the process is taking longer than we had hoped.

From this it follows that if the trust can’t operate the site for lack of permissions, then there is no way it can generate any income to pay its way - so again the trust would be open to criticism if it was to sign up now.

l Thirdly, we need to consider timing of the lease and its potential affect on scheme sustainability, which is a more complex issue.

Basically what this means is that when the lease commences then the clock starts ticking as regards how long the owners subsidise some of the costs which the trust will incur in operating the site.

Obviously we and the trust dearly want this scheme to be a success, but at the same time there has to be a point where the scheme stands independently on its own feet – which is the purpose of the time limit on the subsidy.

So to give the scheme as much help as we possibly can, then we need to hold back from starting the clock until the last possible minute.

So, I have to ask, knowing now what the reasoning has been behind where we are with the lease, wouldn’t it have been so much better if instead of simplistically rejecting the scheme, the council had instead given some form of conditional approval?

There are a couple of other aspects about this scheme which are becoming quite saddening to me and I wish to comment on.

The first is the seemingly negative attitude of some of the town councillors towards this scheme, despite it having huge community support, is unquestionably “do-able”, is desperately needed and has the potential to do so much good for the town.

For the life of me I just cannot understand why it should be this way, it’s such a shame, such a lost opportunity.

If, instead of adversity there could be co-operation, then together we could achieve so much more for the community and we would all be sending out all the right messages – together. Instead of this, all the wrong messages are being emitted.

The second is the implied criticism from some quarters that we, as owners, are looking to somehow profiteer from the public purse.

Well, I do admit that it would be nice to eventually, one day, make a little profit from all the funds and effort we have thus far ploughed into this scheme ( with more yet to come).

However, with the arrangements being put in place to enable the trust to operate the site the way intended (for a lot longer than I will probably live!), it will be quite some years before any returns could possibly be anticipated, and even then they will likely be very limited weighed against the initial input and especially bearing in mind the huge financial “gamble” of buying the site in the first place.

But then the site really wasn’t purchased with the expectation of making huge profits, rather it was purchased with the belief and commitment that, somehow, the building should be saved from “mindless flat builders” and instead be rehabilitated to become as it was for so many years, something of real benefit to the community – which is where the initial “link” with the trust came in.

The last issue I feel the need to comment on is the proposal to fund some of this scheme from the public purse when it involves a privately owned building.

Although some may not agree, together with the trust we strongly believe this is absolutely right for this scheme, but it does perhaps need some explaining.

Over the months, a number of potential funding ideas have been explored, the conclusion being that apart from the incredibly generous support already being freely given by many members of the community, coupled together with whatever “grant” type schemes we may be fortunate enough to secure, the only other available alternative would be to make use of commercial borrowing.

Effectively, however, this would turn the scheme into a form of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) which, we strongly believe, would most likely cause it to fail.

Hopefully most readers will be aware of what PFI schemes are about, but for those who aren’t, they are mostly large, long-term community service-based schemes which in one form or another revolve around the borrowing of funds to get them up and running.

Unfortunately, however, many of these schemes have become total millstones to those now running them, the reason often being that they are struggling to service high operating costs and spiralling debts out of a limited income, much of the problem for which originates from the high costs of borrowing to get the scheme going in the first place.

Clearly, at all costs, we have to stay well clear of that sort of problem - we desperately want this scheme to succeed, not fail.

In order to succeed, our scheme needs to be long-term financially sustainable, which means it has to be able to provide good quality community services at a realistic, affordable cost. Quite simply this wouldn’t be possible with a PFI type arrangement.

In contrast, by making good and proper use of public funds instead, it will enable the trust to keep the operating costs right down low and so provide the maximum possible benefit the community at an affordable price.

I do hope this letter has explained things adequately, but if anyone does have questions or concerns then I will happily respond as best I can.

W Howard,

Joint Owner,

Minehead’s Old Hospital.