By Sue Austin
Councillors will discuss the future of an aging youth center building that may need repairs costing up to PS250,000 on Wednesday.
Oswestry Town Council is looking for tenants to fill The Centre after taking over The Centre’s lease from Shropshire Council.
Councillors have been asked if they are willing to stop the project due to the high cost, which includes major roof work.
Shropshire Council relaunched the Centre, originally known as the Centre North West Youth Building in December 2012. A number of projects and activities were implemented.
The grant was a follow-up to a My Place Grant of PS2,4 million and PS400,000 by the Department of Education.
The building is not being used due to funding cuts, and how youth services are funded.
The Community Interest Company Osnosh is one of the projects currently based at this building.
Oswestry Town Council agreed to take over the lease earlier this year with partners.
A report by Arren Roberts, the town clerk to Wednesday’s town council meeting urges caution.
According to the report, the project is now at a point where it’s time for decisions that have significant implications.
The council says that: “Improving youth provision has been a priority for many years. Funding the weekly youth club in the town was the first step to providing services. They are costly to order and need specialist staff in order to be delivered. Therefore, Council has considered that the project would facilitate additional youth provision without
The Council has been working with partners to make the Centre into a hub for the community and have worked towards achieving the goal of supporting Oswestry residents of all ages.
According to the report, the main obstacle in the negotiations was the state of the building. In July 2022 the town council ordered an independent evaluation, which provided a list of deficiencies ranked in order.
The report states that “it is obvious that there have been a variety of problems since the first building was constructed, with the roof in particular being very poor.”
Water damage has been caused to the ceilings, walls and other finishings due to roof failure.
Estimates for roof repairs are as follows: Patch repairs, to fix the list of current failures around PS50 000; full roof repair PS150,000.
The surveyor estimated that it would cost around PS250,000 to restore the building in a condition which any prospective tenants could not dispute.
The annual costs of maintenance could reach PS25,000 per year.
In his report, Mr Roberts says: “Given the fact that the Council has two major capital projects underway, members will need to take into consideration the following factors, including the ability of the Council to achieve the desired vision, where this project fits in with other initiatives, and the analysis of cost-benefit of using the PS250,000.
Members may want to take a break and consider if a verbal update is best.
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