Battle stepped up to save the CEVIC
Council’s bombshell revelations
East Ayrshire Council has ‘ no need’ to use the CEVIC building in Catrine as a nurserybecause they already have funds in place to refurbish the existing one in Newton Street.
That’s the claim from campaigners opposed to plans to seize the CEVIC building from community use and turn it into an Early Learning Centre.
The Save the CEVIC campaign group met virtually with local authority representatives last week to outline their opposition.
And they say the starling admission, that funds are in place to do up the Newton Street nursery, was made by the local authority education representative.
East Ayrshire Council has drawn up proposals to use the CEVIC as part of their early years child care expansion plans.
A planning application has already been lodged.
But if the application gets the green light, it would leave question marks over the future of the village nursery on nearby Newton Street.
The existing CEVIC building was formerly occupied by the Catrine Community Trust and was used for a variety of education and communityrelated purposes.
However, plans have been drawn up to transform the CEVIC to cater for 64 children.
But if that happens, villagers fear the old nursery site could be sold off to developers – and they’ll lose a valued community asset. As a result a campaign group was formed to resist any attempts to seize the CEVIC from community use.
Now campaigners are questioning why there’s a need to take over the building - when funds are supposedly in place to refurbish the Newton Street site anyway.
A campaign spokesperson said they were told at the meeting that ELC “does not need” to move from its current site to the CEVIC as EAC have “already secured” and “allocated” a sufficient budget to refurbish the current building to make it fit for future generations of our Catrine children.
The group spokesman continued: “The meeting merely confirmed our perception that EAC seem hellbent on refusing to
change course- even though EAC could- because we now know that EAC do not need to move the ELC from its existing site to the CEVIC. Using simple logic, most people would see that there is now no need for
the Planning Application to go ahead as it serves no purpose.
They added: “This is a nobrainer.”
It’s understood that Deputy Chief Executive of East Ayrshire Council, Alex
McPhee, will submit a report to Cabinet in December, asking them to decide to either agree to complete withdrawal of the Planning Application immediately and indefinitely, or to reject that request.