Fears community centres will have 'noose round their necks' with huge repairs backlog

THEY HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED AS NEGLECTED"

- OLIVER PRIDMORE

FEARS have been expressed that Nottingham’s community centres will be lumbered with huge repair backlogs which will become a “noose round their necks”.

The city’s community centres are being asked to take on new leases which will see them having responsibility for all repairs, maintenance and insurance at their sites.

Yet the centres have previously described their sites as “neglected” whilst the city council has had responsibility and fear taking on the burden. These concerns were raised at a meeting on Tuesday at which the city council officially approved its future approach to community centres.

The Post's Protect Nottingham Community Centres campaign was launched on January 13 to call for a radical change in the city council's approach. The authority has provided a subsidy of £600,000 a year to all its community centres combined and the council now wants to end these payments as it battles multi-million-pound budget gaps.

The authority previously said it wanted a “core offer” of community centres to remain and that it would be trying to move them off their current peppercorn rents and onto a market-level rent - which could have led to bills for some going from £10 a year to £30,000.

The council recently announced at a meeting called for by our campaign that it had moved away from market rents in a significant shift and instead wanted community centres to chip in a fixed fee of around £400 a year.