Councils urged to list assets communities could take over

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-33799069

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Councils should list facilities community groups could take over to ensure they are not lost in council cuts, a Welsh government adviser has said.

Richard Davies said mounting pressures on councils meant some buildings or services could not be retained.

He said a list of available assets might inspire people to take them on before they are at risk of closure.

The Welsh government is consulting on how best to progress asset transfers.

Mr Davies, who is running a pilot scheme to help people take over sports clubs, libraries and village halls, said: "It is absolutely vital to encourage groups.

"If you see, for instance, that a particular building is available then you can get a community group together, you can form a new community group, and say 'we'd like to take that building on and we would like to do something different with it'."

But he said groups must prove they could make a success of it before they would be allowed to run them.

"Fundamentally councils will not hand over assets unless the group that is taking them over can show that they can become sustainable in the long term by generating income rather than funding," he said.

Mr Davies has previously worked with Blaenau Gwent council, which has already handed over 11 facilities to non-profit groups and is considering 10 more applications.

Before transferring an asset, council officers consider whether groups have a robust business plan and usually insist they take on a 25-year lease.

They also look at what local connections a group has and whether there are alternatives ways of maintaining the building or service.

Dawn Vaughan, of Puddleducks Day Nursery, in Rassau, Ebbw Vale, took it over after the council announced its intention to close it.

"It was a decision of do we close or do we try and take over the entire building and we had over a hundred parents relying on the nursery at the time to be able to go to work," she said.

"I'm a nursery manager, so it's a learning process all the way through - you've got to be really committed… somebody would really need to look at everything before they decide to take [something like this] on."

Nick Pepper helped take over Ebbw Vale Indoor Cricket School three months ago, after seeing the cost of other leisure facilities rise.

He agrees a list of potential asset transfer opportunities could help in the fight to stop community buildings becoming derelict.

"Some of these building have no rolling maintenance programme and the longer they're left to rot, the more money these community organisations have to find to bring them into use," he said.

"That may put groups off taking over those buildings."