06/01/2025
BATHGATE COMMUNITY CENTRE
MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
4th January 2025
Dear Bathgate Residents
Re -West Lothian Council Community Centres Review
We are writing to update you on our response to the Councils Cuts to Community Centres proposal and ask for your support in our attempt to encourage a rethink by the councillors on this issue.
Bathgate Community Centre has responded officially to the councils review of community centres deadline by rejecting the councils 100% budget cut proposal which involves dumping the liability for the centres on local management committees.
Instead, we have taken up their invitation to provide alternative suggestions on a way forward.
After much deliberation and consultation with the community the local centre management committee is making two alternative ways forward suggestions to West Lothian Councillors.
Alternative Suggestion One
The Management Committee expresses its total opposition to the Council's proposal, emphasizing that it represents a detrimental step for community wellbeing and community wealth building initiatives. The proposal should be scrapped.
While we understand the Council's dire financial circumstances, we believe a gradual reduction in budget spend for Community Centres, similar to other council services, would be a more responsible approach than a drastic 100% cut in a single year.
We would be open to making an annual financial contribution to the Council, the amount would depend on our yearly income and our commitment to providing affordable space for volunteer groups, charities, and residents while at the same time making financial grants to community organisations to support their activities.
We would also commit to conducting a comprehensive review of our Centre's operations. This review will aim to develop an improvement plan that maximizes community use while identifying opportunities for cost reduction and increased efficiency and additional income opportunities.
Alternative Suggestion Two
We would also like the Council to seriously consider more radical alternative solutions for community centres, such as transferring their management and associated budgets to an independent organisation.
This could take the form of a social enterprise, cooperative, non-profit company, or charity. This entity could then employ dedicated staff and implement improvements like modernized booking and invoicing systems, framework repair contracts, and joint insurance arrangements and apply for project funding from funding bodies for investment for all participating community centres.
This collaborative approach could lead to more efficient management of these vital community assets, while relieving individual Management Committees of unsustainable financial burdens.
The Council could then gradually reduce its budget contribution to the new organisation over a number of years or at the end of the current financial pressures.
In the interim a West Lothian wide association of management committees or volunteers should be formed with council assistance to explore this proposal and reach agreement with the council.
In the Meantime
The council officers have acknowledged the receipt of our detailed return and have undertaken to report to councillors in due course.
The Bathgate Management Committee will however write to all councillors with our alternative suggestions requesting them to back one of them and scrap the current council proposals.
We are writing to you as a Bathgate resident asking for your support on this issue and asking you to let the council or councillors and your members aware of your support for the Community Centre.
We will start to undertake the review of our centre operations we promised along with all policies and procedures and new initiatives aimed at increasing use and enjoyment of this valuable community resource. Any views you have on this would be appreciated.
The presentation we made to the public in December will also be made available online for anyone interested in the financial demand the councils’ proposals meant for Bathgate Community Centre which we could not accept.
Yours sincerely
Bathgate Community Centre Management Committee
Secretary [email protected]
