COMPLAINT TO COUNCIL OVER CASH AWARDED FOR HALL

PUBLIC funding awarded for repairs to a community hall over a year ago has never been used, it has emerged. The Glasgow Times has discovered that the funding amounting to £6320 to Corkerhill Neighbourhood Hall remains in an account which has been frozen by the bank for administrative reasons.

It is understood that the bank account for the neighbourhood hall should have been set up as a charitable one. It was instead set up as a business account which resulted in the bank asking the committee to change it.

This correspondence was ignored for several months and the bank took a decision to freeze the account.

This newspaper has also uncovered confusion over the money between members of the community committee set up to obtain a lease to run the hall.

The grant was obtained in the name of former committee chairwoman Karen Donaldson – but she claims she knows nothing about it and never applied for the money.

She has made the council aware of the issue and lodged a formal complaint.

The community facility, which was in the area for more than 30 years, has since closed and was given the funding by Cardonald Area Partnership last May to make substantial improvements to the ladies, gents and disabled toilets.

We previously reported in 2018 that residents had rallied round to save it. A new committee was formed but since then that group has dwindled in numbers with

Miss Donaldson stepping down last May.

In minutes from committee meetings on March 13 and March 26 last year, it is noted on two occasions that Miss Donaldson was stepping down from the role.

She, however, later learned that the funding was applied for in her name in an application dated April 24, 2019. It was subsequently passed by a council committee on May 7, 2019 – days after she officially quit the role.

Now Miss Donaldson wants to make sure the money is put to good use elsewhere in the community.

She said: “I am totally shocked because we have always done everything by the book and followed the constitution and guidance we were given by Glasgow City Council.

“This money is sitting in an account that could have been put to good use somewhere else.”