Sunday, March 15, 2009

Selling off the family silver......

At last the sale/lease of Swanage Bay View Holiday Park has been advertised in the press:http://www.foxleisure.co.uk/detail.asp?id=181
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15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buy one Bay View Holiday Park, get the old Grammer School free?

http://www.nettleshipsawyer.co.uk/details/showproperty.php?ref=4220

17/3/09 5:41 pm
Anonymous said...

So here is the opportunity for PDC to buy the plot for the asking £1.25M, put up affordable housing, they would get at least 100 units. That’s £12,500 per plot. Building cost would be about £90,000 each, so they could sell the units to a housing association for about £120,000 and that’s the problem of housing shortage in Swanage gone for ever.

18/3/09 8:49 am
Anonymous said...

No they need a new town hall first with parking for councilors and staff. Any way Swanage Town Council want the money they will not build anything useful

18/3/09 10:20 am
Anonymous said...

Perhaps Purbeck Housing Action should wake from its slumbers and start organising finance for this. The town council is not allowed to borrow money, PDC, as we have all seen, got out of the housebuilding game years ago which leaves housing associations and charities.

18/3/09 4:50 pm
Anonymous said...

If the Town Council is not allowed to borrow money, how come they have 2 loans totaling over £200k which they have defered payments on these loans for this year. They are obviously hopeing to clear these from the lease of the Holiday park

19/3/09 9:53 am
Anonymous said...

Why be negative about the town council. Stand as a councillor and get things changed!

20/3/09 5:53 am
Anonymous said...

Swanage Town Council borrowed something like a million over a period of years. Whenever they wanted to spend on something they borrowed, demonstrating that this is not a trait unique to Labour I suppose. Anyway, a few years ago the auditor awoke to the fact that as a parish council they have no legal power to borrow and told them to start paying it back, which they have been doing. I thought this was common knowledge.

20/3/09 10:09 am
Anonymous said...

They have defered this years payments,but I bet interest will still be added so some of the previous repayments will have been for nothing. I understand the Town is still £100k short on its budget and thats with 39.5% precept rise.
Who spend alot of money haveing the Vista centre being decorated and then discovers the electric needs replaceing damageing all the decorating?

20/3/09 10:07 pm
Anonymous said...

A few years ago the town council thought it had the power to borrow, and so did the lenders, then an auditor twigged the fact that they are only a parish council, like all the villages have, and told them to pay the money back.

24/3/09 1:43 pm
Anonymous said...

The Council has listed SBVHP for sale under 'informal tender'. This may be illegal, or in breech of the rules, if done by a Parish Council with a town owned asset. An informal tender would allow the Town (actually Parish) Council to sell to a preferred buyer who may or may not provide the best offer, or whose offer may be accepted before others have a chance to place a bid.

This could be (mis)construed as akin to insider trading and makes no sense as it lacks the transparency promised by the Town Council and Town Clerk. The rate payers of Swanage should watch what happens with appropriate diligence and speak up if they are concerned, particularly if the successful bidder already owns another park in the town and may have been involved in last year's sale by informal tender (halted by the District Auditor). If unsure where to turn, anyone on the voting roll in Swanage should be able to lodge a complaint with the District Auditor.

s-garlick@audit-commission.gov.uk

The District Auditor will fairly assess any objection without prejudice.

24/3/09 9:20 pm
Anonymous said...

Rowland Hughes askes:
£1.25 million? Informal tender? Isn't this a very good deal if this is all the TC expects to net us?

The sales blurb says:
• Renowned location on the Isle of Purbeck and Heritage Coast.
• Licensed for 322 Static Holiday Caravans from 1st March to 16th January in the following year.
• Well-established with 290 serviced static holiday pitches - mainly with private owner Homes,
subject to pitch agreements.
• Core facilities include licensed Club, Indoor Pool, Gym, Reception/Offices and various areas sublet.
• Caravan Sales Office and Launderette.
• Consolidated gross pitch fee income 2009 in the region of £700,000 per annum.
• Latent trading potential to enhance caravan sales and secondary spend.
• In all, about 9.5 hectares/23.5 acres.
FOR SALE BY INFORMAL TENDER - 15TH MAY 2009
SUBSTANTIAL OFFERS INVITED FOR 99 YEAR LEASEHOLD INTEREST
PROPOSALS FOR RACK RENT AND/OR PREMIUM CONSIDERED

27/3/09 2:52 pm
Anonymous said...

1.25 million is the premium for the lease. The town hopes for an annual rent/royalty based upon pitch income, caravan sales and any other commercial use of the site by the lessees. They also want a rack rent to take into account the extensive capital investment that will be required, as the site has been allowed to become run down by the Council.

It will be an act of faith for any investor to want to take this on at this time.

27/3/09 4:37 pm
Anonymous said...

the previous poster says a rack rent is demanded because the council let the site run down. I'm not sure what a rack rent is, but an online definition said "rack rent• noun a very high rent." Does anyone have a different definition?
Also, I thought the Council had spent over 500,000 getting it up to four star standard.

27/3/09 6:49 pm
Anonymous said...

www.businessdictionary.com defines a rack rant as "Not less than two-thirds of the rent for which a premises is reasonably expected to be rented out from year to year, excluding applicable rates and taxes but including insurance and other expenses required to maintain it in the state to command such rent."

27/3/09 7:46 pm
Anonymous said...

It is true the Council spent in excess of half a million pounds in 2005/6 to improve the Vista and was granted a provisional 4 Star rating. This was reduced to a 3 star rating in 2008 because the work that had been required, as part of the conditional 4 Star rating, had not been done. This includes provision of updated toilets for the Quarryman Bar, and a shop to replace the one removed when the old shop was converted into caravan sales, among other things. The Park is still 3 star and will probably remain that way until new owners take over. Half a million down the drain, but note - this was paid for by site fees and not the rate payers of Swanage.

Some of the work done to the Vista is substandard. The whole Vista's electricity system is unsound and over 90 items are deemed to require urgent repair, as identified by a survey undertaken last August. This includes the ring circuit surrounding the pool. There was no electrical certificate posted in the Vista as required by the site licence from PDC, as of last Christmas. Purbeck District Council said this deficiency is nothing to do with them (as licence issuer) but the Health and Safety Executive.

Far from improving the site, the Council has allowed it to deteriorate to its pre-2005/6 makeover.

27/3/09 11:53 pm

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