Halt‘bonkers’project

So the SAC Leadership Panel panel met on the 24th to once again consider what we were told would be an Olympicstandard pool.

Is it consistent then that the latest iteration excludes diving, an Olympic sport currently provided for at the Citadel?

Olympic aspirations aside normally you would seek the requirements of your users. Apparently not in South Ayrshire.

The council’s Leadership Panel are asked to approve a 10 per cent increase on an oddly precise cost of £40.997,239, that the panel approved before a drawing or specification was ever put to paper. Why so precise?

Giving faux credibility to a weak proposal perhaps?

So we now have an increase on a made up number. Is that OK?

The Panel are told the Arran Mall has been bought subject to planning approval.

Word is that officers have bought a non-returnable option to buy.

If true, they have put public money (said to approximate to £1m) at risk assuming planning approval.

By so doing SAC has effectively taken the Mall off the market and blocked any other developments of the Arran Mall.

That sounds a lot like a local authority abusing its powers. Is that OK?

Is it OK to tell the Panel “The new leisure centre will be designed to meet the net zero carbon aspirations recently approved through the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Strategy” whilst ignoring the carbon released by the extensive demolition required?

Where’s the balanced score card? Or are half truths OK?

Is it not disingenuous to tell the Panel that “It is also proposed that there will be a range of flexible dry facilities which can cater for multiple activities and community use.

“This will include spaces which can accommodate a range of activities including spin classes, aerobics, pilates, yoga and martial arts, a fitness studio and supporting spaces including consultation rooms, reception, café and storage” and then say “There is an expectation that these elements will provide the correct balance between sport and leisure and could see significant increases in participation at all levels.”

Highly improbable. There is no mention of the many sports needing a full size hall (33m x 18m x 7.6m) such as netball, basketball, badminton, tennis, soccer etc, already provided for in the only 25-year-old Citadel?

And are we to see the loss of yet another multi-purpose venue in Ayr with the loss of the Citadel halls?

And where is the justification for these so called “expectations”?

Nobody should approve any document on unsubstantiated assumptions. I once met some councillors and SNP officers from East Ayrshire who laughingly told me they just could not understand the governance model of South Ayrshire Council. They are not alone but they don’t have to live here.

Quite how this bonkers project ever got the momentum it has, we will probably never know, but it must stop now. The 24 elected members should have dug deep, find their inner common sense and call this ridiculous and poorly thought through project in now, if only to reign in what appears the excesses of the officer class and focus scarce resource and effort in more fruitful endeavours.

Enough already.

John Dunlop,Wellington Lane, Ayr