Bourne Comment

SAVING THE TOWN HALL FOR THE COMMUNITY

The recent closure of the Town Hall will go down in our history as an event that should never have happened. The early 19th century building which has been the centre of civic life in this town for almost two centuries was shut by Lincolnshire County Council in March 2013 against the will of the people and all local authority services transferred to the new Community Access Point at the Corn Exchange with the intention of putting it up for sale only to discover that it was not theirs to sell and must be left in public ownership.

Now two years on and after an outlay of Ł600,000 in public money spent in conjunction with South Kesteven District Council, the Town Hall is being returned to the community where it belonged in the first place after it was finally acknowledged that it is owned by the people who paid for it. Unfortunately, the transfer of all council services at town, district and county level, together with the public library and register office, is now complete and so we are left with a major change that was totally unnecessary.

The reason for vacating the Town Hall was that the building had become too costly to maintain and needed a great deal of expenditure to bring it up to standard yet had the half a million pounds or more spent on creating the CAP been invested in improvement work, including the installation of a new lift, then the Corn Exchange need not have been subjected to this upheaval and that unsightly shipping container would not still be parked outside the back to store the market stalls which had been overlooked in the planning stage.

The county council was warned repeatedly that they had no legal right to dispose of the Town Hall because it was built in 1821 with money raised mainly by public subscription and therefore remained the property of the town. Yet despite warnings from this column and elsewhere, the county council pressed ahead with the project and announced that once complete, the Grade II listed building would be sold on the commercial market, thus raising fears that it could become a carpet warehouse, a Weatherspoon pub or given some other function wholly unsuitable to its standing in the town.

The Town Hall was built in 1821 to a design by the architect Bryan Browning with an exterior staircase and recessed twin flights of steps within the front of the building which featured twin Doric columns after the fashion of the Roman baths. The total cost of the building was Ł2,450 (Ł250,000 at today’s values) and the money was raised through the county rate, through the sale of salvaged materials from the previous building and, most importantly, from public contributions and as a large painted board containing the names of the original subscribers with the amount they contributed is still on display in the main courtroom, it seems incredible that council officials did not know it was there.

The foundation stone was laid on 30th April 1821 by the Marquess of Exeter, Lord of the Manor of Bourne, and a bottle was buried within it containing coins of the realm from the reign of George IV and a document describing the ceremony and detailing those who had subscribed to the cost of the building. Construction was completed within five months and the Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 19th October 1821: “The new and elegant Town Hall is one of the greatest improvements ever made in a town. By the removal of the old building from the market place, and the erection of this new one in a better situation, Bourne is wonderfully altered; its appearance of closeness and heaviness is removed as if by the hand of a magician, and the town puts on the ‘jaunty air’ of a lively and prosperous place.”

The official opening was performed the following week by Earl Brownlow, Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire, accompanied by members of the bench of magistrates and other local and county worthies. "It was found to be admirably calculated for a Sessions House and for all the uses for which the building was designed", reported the newspaper.

And so it remained for almost 200 years, the centre of administration for this town until March 2013 when it became the victim of local authority budget economies and was left standing empty and disused while the generosity of those who paid for it was conveniently forgotten.

But evidence of ownership by the community was on the way and proof was eventually found indicating that the building does indeed belong to Bourne and cannot be sold for commercial use. A search of the archives at county hall which this column had been urging ever since the scheme was first mooted in 2008 finally produced evidence that the Town Hall is held in trust as a charity and the use of the building restricted to its intended purpose as a town hall, courthouse with ancillary market stalls or shambles nearby.

This information came to light through the assistance of Anthony Jennings, conservationist and leading member of the Bourne Preservation Society, who is also a solicitor and therefore aware of the legal niceties surrounding the case.

Fortunately, the county council has now finally conceded that the Town Hall does indeed belong to the people of Bourne and at their meeting on Friday members agreed that it should be handed back for community use to be held in trust under the auspices of a five-member management committee consisting of Councillors Bob Adams (Colsterworth Rural, Conservative) David Brailsworth (Stamford West, Conservative), Geoff Ellis (Lincoln Moorland, Labour), Stuart Tweedale (Ruskington and Cranwell, Conservative) and Robert Foulkes (Stamford North, UKIP).

It is a pity that outside representatives should be chosen for this task when they know little or nothing of the town and although local councillors or lay officials would have been a better choice, trustees must not have personal interests that might conflict with their duties and so we must be content with what we have but then half a cake is better than none and perhaps the rules might be changed in the years to come to reflect a more appropriate representation.

But what do we do with the Town Hall now we have it back? Well, we do know that town councillors are fed up with the cramped space at the Corn Exchange and hanker to be back in their old home as indicated by the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor David Higgs, who revealed to The Local newspaper last year (April 26th) that he was not happy with the relocation of the town council to the Corn Exchange. “It is such an iconic building in the centre of town”, he said. “Everyone still recognises it as the Town Hall and if it were left to me I would move the town council back into it.”

This appears to be a most sensible suggestion because the town council could occupy the first floor and resume using the courtroom for their meetings as in the past rather than continue in the cramped surroundings of the Corn Exchange where there is insufficient room for the public. This would leave the entire ground floor which could be converted for use as the public library, so providing sufficient space to restore the reading room and reference library which were axed when it was moved from perfectly adequate premises in South Street and this in turn would relieve the current pressure on space at the Corn Exchange brought about by this move.

However, there will be other suggestions and perhaps even better ones. County Councillor Helen Powell (Bourne Castle), who has fought hard to bring about this decision, said that ideas were already coming in. “We need as many as possible”, she said. “There is a very strong sense of purpose in Bourne and a highly robust self-sufficiency and civic pride among our hard working charity members and volunteers and it will be wonderful to see the Town Hall restored and functioning as well as providing benefits for the community and its deserving people.”

The new management committee must therefore take soundings from the town once their discussions over future use begin and it is hoped that the obvious choices will be given due deliberation. Certainly, their task will be to right the wrong done to this town in trying to take away a building that has been theirs since 1821 and any future use must reflect the will of the people and not merely the constraints of county hall bureaucracy.

Note: This article was published by the Bourne web site on 28th February 2015