Camborne Town Councils Shed

A few years ago, when Cornwall Council notified Town and Parish Councils that it intended to devolve some services down to that level Camborne Town Council did a review of it's assets. The Store that we rented was deemed too small to accommodate any growth, and seeing that we had some assets in other storage and some in Councillors garages, we took the decision to look for a new Store. This decision was backed up by a senior Labour member and a senior Conservative member who did a Health and Safety audit on our old Store and found it somewhat lacking. Therefore the Town Clark spent many hours searching for a suitable premises, and She presented a list of options, both rental and to buy. A few members went and looked at all the options available, and then had a meeting to discuss our thoughts. The first set of options was defeated at a Full Council meeting and it was decided to defer a decision until the new Council was formed in May 2013.

When the new Council was formed, we yet again looked at new options, and the Council decided to go ahead with looking into buying a new Store. The was costed by a member, purchase against rental, and it was found that by buying we would save the Rate payers of Camborne £100,000 over twenty five years, and £500,000 over forty years. At a meeting of the Full Council the decision to buy was carried by fourteen votes to three against.

When the news hit the media, Camborne Town Council was accused of doing this all in private. We had thirteen meetings where the matter was discussed, only two were held in private due to the nature of business i.e cost, which has to be held in private. Also as we have bought the property, it is now an asset of the Town. So say if in X amount of years to come we no longer need a Store, Camborne Town Council can sell the property and invest that profit back into the Town for the benefit of the Town.

I have supported this all the way through the process and I truly believe that the right decisions were made all along. What many ordinary people might not realise is that Camborne Town Council, along with all the other Councils have statutory obligations to fulfil. This along with having a duty of care for our employees, along with Health and Safety obligations makes some decisions necessary that might not be popular.