A community centre in Penarth which cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to develop still doesn’t have a long-term operator.
Vale of Glamorgan Council cabinet members agreed at a meeting on Thursday to extend a management agreement for the Big Fresh Catering Company to continue acting as the interim operators of Belle Vue Community Centre.
The council said the one-year extension, which includes three-monthly break clauses if a future handover is required, will give them time to consider the future management of the building.
Council leader Lis Burnett, said: “It is really important that we get the right result on this. It is a really super community centre and more than that I think it has got really excellent disabled facilities.”
Plans to demolish the old Belle Vue Pavilion and build a new community building were approved by the council’s planning committee in 2021.
The centre opened in 2023 and a management arrangement was put in place last year, whereby Big Fresh would operate the building on an interim basis.
The licence and management agreement was set to expire on Monday 31st March.
Cllr Burnett added: “[We are] really interested in working with those parties that want to take over the centre and hopefully during the next year we can move forward to find the right result.”
Plans to redevelop Belle Vue were criticised by some residents who said at the time that it would serve as a “massively underused white elephant” and would only benefit a small number of “already well-served people”.
A change.org petition opposing the plans at the time references how money from property developers, secured through section 106 obligations, was used for the project.
Section 106 contributions are commonly given by developers as part of the planning process in order to improve the area in and around where a new development is built and to mitigate any impacts it might have.
The petition states: “Rather than wasting an enormous amount of public money on this project, let’s build something new [and] better within the communities who have lost their facilities."
“A basic re-development of the Belle Vue Pavilion can be done for a fraction of the current budget leaving the majority of the available funds for services in Penarth Heights.”
Since it opened, Belle Vue has been used for a number of activities including music classes, art classes, and Spanish lessons.
Big Fresh, which is a local authority trading company established by the county council, is considering putting forward a proposal to manage the community centre on a long-term basis.
Friends of Belle Vue have also submitted a community asset transfer application to take on the running of the building.
Both will be subject to a future Vale of Glamorgan Council cabinet report.
The cabinet paper on the extension of the interim management arrangements states: “Other alternative management arrangements will need to be considered alongside this submission to ensure that any new arrangement is sustainable and suitably community-focused.”
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