Dear Nub News

At last week's extraordinary full council meeting, the Mayor reportedly said that the awarding of the contract for the new pavilion was 'not a done deal' and gave the impression that they were about to discuss this further in the confidential session. There was, however, no item on the agenda which related to that. Later that week, a social media post from Hadleigh Town Council seemed to imply that it was a done deal. HTC posted that if the councillors didn't vote for contract and loan on the table, there would be no pavilion. 

I understand that the council discussed separating the two projects (pitch and pavilion) in August 2022, and by a majority agreed, to follow the officers recommendation to keep them together. 

By late 2022, the 3G pitch plan was put in 'abeyance' following revelations that the site was not large enough for a full size pitch, and controversy around the material to be used.

Then in December 2023, the council voted to scrap the pitch project altogether and continue with the pavilion, without amending the plans for a 3G-pitch-related and FA-approved design. 

This includes: 

-4 x multi person changing rooms - 144 square metres of changing space

-a physio room

-an office/ meeting space plus kitchenette for the staff needed to service the bookings and maintainance of the (now scrapped) pitch

-2 officials' changing rooms 

-a club room for the tennis club which is on the verge of folding, and

-15 toilets 

On the Babergh District Council Planning Portal you can see how much larger a building it is than the one lost to arson 4 years ago.

In 2023 all the sports clubs were represented at a meeting with another developer. There are hopes that this developer will provide a community sports hub elsewhere in Hadleigh, to which the rugby club and football club will relocate, in the hope that a 3G pitch will also be on the cards. 

£850000 or thereabouts for a building which 90 percent of us will never see the inside of and the design of which is no longer justified, seems a bit of a step. A replacement for the lost pavilion is long needed. 

No problem, I thought, I'll have a look back over discussions on this topic in previous council meetings. Hadleigh councillors had discussed this previously, so I could get a sense of how they all felt about it from the minutes of last year's meetings. 

Imagine my surprise when I could find only two sets of final minutes on the website for the period 2023-2024. 

There are some statutory duties at this tier of local government, and I suggest that Hadleigh Town Council gets those basic things in order, before we are asked to trust them with projects worth millions of our pounds. No money that the council spends is 'free'.

We are paying in our taxes for the council to take care of our 'well being', while we watch Suffolk County and Babergh District councils may have to slash services and funding to the bone for want of cash. I'm afraid that officers and councillors who do not realise that a far smaller building is required for this project, and who cannot perform the basic tasks of putting minutes on the website are not fit for purpose. And they certainly should not be allowed near a project of this size and cost. 

Hadleigh Taxpayer