Article - Fishersgate

The CRUNCH

This evening March 31 at the Shoreham Civic Centre, the Cabinet will consider the Association’s proposal to repair and complete the Fishersgate Community Centre. Jim Plant, the Association’s surveyor who has produced the plans and development costings, Peter Averillo, the Association’s chair and Ricky Daniel, from the Project Development Committee, will present the Proposal and answer Members’ questions.

Historically, there has always been a reluctance on the part of the Council to trust the community to make its own decisions on how services and facilities are delivered and developed. It is now facing up to the ‘crunch’ issue. Will it have to release the fire-insurance money to the Association so that it can bring the Centre back into use? Or, will it try to force the Association to surrender its lease, demolish the buildings and use the money to further its own projects? If the Association succeeds in reopening and completing the Community and Sports Centre, Fishersgate can look forward to an unprecedented range of facilities. If the Council persists in withholding the fire-insurance money, there will be a long, bitter and expensive battle and the scandal of the waste of the £1.2 million that has been spent to date on the ‘Dome Project’ will be brought under the spotlight of public scrutiny for the first time. Not before time!, shout many. But the Association has always believed that fulfilling its original mission for Fishersgate is more important that headlines. Hopefully, the Council will accept that by working with the Association, it can realise its own plans for Fishersgate alongside a Community Centre owned and run by the community itself.

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Ground Hog Day
Well, for a while, the Council Officers were genuinely interested in coming to an understanding with our community rather than trying to socially engineer the area. The FCA team had a very positive first meeting with the Chief Executive Ian Lowrie; Chief Legal Officer Jeremy Cook; Peter Latham whose close and long involvement with all aspects of the Dome is well known; Nathalie Brahma-Pearl serene in her superiority, plus two councillors sent as observers, We all agreed to hold a series of meetings, split into two strands. The first to explore how we could work together develop the Dome site for the good of the community, the second to put on the table all the issues that had poisoned relations between the Community Association and the Local Authority over the years, and to try to learn the lessons so that future projects could be managed better..

The CRUNCH
This evening March 31 at the Shoreham Civic Centre, the Cabinet will consider the Association’s proposal to repair and complete the Fishersgate Community Centre. Jim Plant, the Association’s surveyor who has produced the plans and development costings, Peter Averillo, the Association’s chair and Ricky Daniel, from the Project Development Committee, will present the Proposal and answer Members’ questions.

This time, it’s for REAL -
The Fishersgate Community Association puts forward exciting new proposals

Where we are -
The project to build a new Community Centre

Together we can make Fishersgate a better place
I am a Trustee of the Fishersgate Community Association. I have been for just over a year. I joined the F.C.A. in the hope that I would be able to help with kick-starting again the good the F.C.A. had previously provided for the community.