THE sale of Minehead's Vulcan Road car park for retail purposes would generate "significant surplus funds" of between £8 and £11 million for local projects and initiatives, members of West Somerset District Council were told on Wednesday. Deputy chief executive Rod Latham outlined the options available to councillors when he advised them the car park should be sold as soon as possible. He said marketing had proved it would not be feasible for the site to be used for tourism or leisure purposes but acknowledged a sell-off for retail development would be controversial "mainly because of the damage it may caused to the viability of the town centre". The same report also called for further work be done to "identify and appraise" other suitable sites for new council offices - despite councillors earmarking just three sites as possible locations - in an apparent attempt to ensure a redevelopment in Williton would be an absolute last resort. Just four weeks ago councillors approved what was believed to have been a definitive final list of prospective new office sites - the county council- owned highways depot site alongside Vulcan Road car park in Minehead, the Aquasplash leisure pool site again in Minehead and the existing council offices site in Williton's Killick Way. But in a report to this week's meeting, Mr Latham advised councillors that the depot site was not feasible and neither was the Aquasplash site after members stipulated the pool could not be closed until the proposed New Horizons lifelong learning and leisure centre was 'signed and sealed' and that was unlikely to be until 2008. Mr Latham said: "This would probably be too late for the new offices. "The final site was Williton, which remains an achievable option, but which doesn't have the service and operational advantages of a Minehead location. "More work is needed before a final decision can be made in this area and, as there are no grant implications, there is some flexibility in the timescale, although not too much given the financial and operational imperatives. "It is, therefore, recommended that more work is undertaken to identify and appraise suitable sites so that a final decision can be made in September." Possible locations so far included in the melting pot are believed to be the Minehead Hospital site and the council's existing satellite offices in Blenheim Road, Minehead. Mr Latham also advised that equally controversial plans for speculative offices to rent should be dropped from the key sites proposals as a result of the depot site not being "available". Although senior officers still appeared to be pushing the scheme forward when questioned about it as last week's public meeting, in his report to Wednesday's meeting, Mr Latham said there was a current lack of market demand for such speculative offices. He maintained the scheme would have been successful if it had gone ahead on the proposed location, but conceded: "It would be wrong to assume that it could work somewhere else. "The chance of finding a site that had all the necessary ingredients in time to obtain grant funding, even with the recently extended deadlines, is very remote." He acknowledged the council's key sites plans had courted controversy, most notably "a well attended" protest march and 5,147-signature petition against the proposals. He concluded: "The issues are not straightforward and members will, no doubt, weigh the considerable amount of evidence and opinions they have been presented with over recent months and make their own judgements. "The report does not, therefore, seek to summarise any of that information but, instead, concentrates on providing a suitably logical structure within which proper debates can take place and appropriate decisions made. "Consistent with that approach, no attempt has been made to interpret the findings of the market research exercise, nor to summarise what was said at last Wednesday's public meeting, other than to say that the majority, though not all, of the speakers from the floor were opposed to the sale of the land for retail purposes." He said it was not financially viable for the council to borrow money to ensure its list of priority projects such as the development of new leisure facilities and affordable housing were achieved and urged members to authorise the sale of Vulcan Road car park.
