Parishioners were asked to approve the setting aside of a contingency fund amounting to £20,000 for future repair work on the centre, as well as the collection of £10,000 towards legal fees relating to bringing the centre’s trust documents and governance role in line with current charities legislation.
St Saviour’s parish dean Karen Fooks said the estimated cost of work that was required to the outside of the centre building, along with other repairs, was about £100,000 over the next five years.
This included a new roof over the pool and outhouses.
The former Mont Varouf school was renovated by the parish in about 2012 to become a community hub, which is used by a number of organisations and events.
Mrs Fooks said the centre was well-maintained by its directors, and well-used and appreciated by those in the parish.
The parish office and douzaine room were based there, and St Saviour’s floral group had ‘worked wonders’ to create a garden and make the approach to the centre more attractive.
Theatre group Music Theatre Guernsey used the centre extensively as a rehearsal space, as well as for storage and for running an escape room business, which provided a ‘valuable’ rent.
She said the centre was projecting figures which showed an expected profit of about £25,000 a year, which was sufficient to run the centre and maintain the building’s interior.
However, this money would not cover the expense of major exterior repairs, and she said the parish felt it unacceptable to expect the centre’s directors to fund such an expense on a building they did not own.
‘Tenants are normally responsible for the upkeep of the interior of the building but not the building’s actual structure.’
She added there was a risk MTG’s rent could be lost if repairs did not happen.
The wording in the remede described the £20,000 as being for the maintenance of ‘parish assets’ rather than explicitly mentioning the centre.
Mrs Fooks said this was done because, until the parish knew it had ratepayers’ approval in principle and legal advice, it did not know how the money could be allocated to pay for the expected capital grant of the centre.
‘Once we have a clear legal mechanism to pay such grants, it is the intention of the douzaine to include a capital and revenue grant in future remedes,’ she said.
The parish meeting was the first to be held since it was agreed that from 2030 parishes rates will no longer have to be used to house a rector. St Saviour’s currently houses the rector for St Saviour’s and Torteval in its rectory. The decision was mentioned at the meeting, but was not discussed due to how recent Friday’s States decision was.
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