The Civic Hall plan... not quite gone, and definitely not forgotten

The views of many Sheptonians still appear to be divided on the Civic Hall 'debate'.  The 'should or shouldn't their have been a referendum' debate within a debate reared it's head, and as previously described, councillors do not seem to have a unanimous view on even that.  

Those who were against the referendum were not necessarily in favor of the Hall idea.  Those who were against the Hall idea happening 'right now' confess that they are not necessarily against the Hall idea per se, just that the timing "beggars belief".  

Derek Marvin, who proposed the plan is quoted as dismissing the result (based on percentages), vowing to complete the work of the working party he is leading to "investigate" the idea, while categorically and un-apologetically stating his findings (that the Hall is viable) in sniffing distance of the same sentence which he has repeated many times, that the findings of the working party will not be available until early next year.

The average person in the town?  Well, they are generally speaking, really quite confused.   "I thought that was the last of it", was what one young mother-to-be told me, having gone out on a grotty late autumn evening to express her strong feelings against the plan.  The referendum result was 89% against, 11% for, which is interesting, but is the reason the referendum was called the real point of interest here?

The Town Council appear nothing at the moment if not divided, and in an embarrassingly public way.  There is strong leadership from Chairman, Councillor Chris Inchley and the well established support of Town Clerk Graham Brown, and what we might be witnessing is a 'team' going through the 'storming, norming etc' process.  

However, the Town and it's elected leaders have numerous issues to address and for the second time in as many months, large numbers of local people have felt the need to come together to ensure their representation and the only logical assumption can be that they do not feel that this would automatically happen in their absence.  A referendum is the ultimate statement of this, enabling people to exercise their most fundamental democratic right to be heard.  

In this instance, there were various references to timing, context and priorities;  those who were against the civic hall by their very gut instincts (and failing that, 20 minutes in front of a news program covering the global financial crisis) yet allowed, or encouraged the idea to be explored, and (as was seemingly revealed on this site), for £5000 of taxpayers money to be set aside for that investigation, could well be accused of neglecting their responsibility to ensure that the Council addresses priority issues and does not waste it's time on folly.

Continued analysis of this as an issue, which ever side you stand is very much starting to feel like a post-mortem on the corpse of an idea whose purgatory we shall no doubt continue to suffer until it is sent to peace, possibly in the new year - but honestly, who knows!

As is so often the case though, the 'most straightforward view award' must surely go to the aforementioned mother-to-be, who I can only paraphrase (due to the sensitive profanity filter) "Why don't they just stop arguing and get on with sorting the Town out?".  Wise words.