THE row over the future management of Alton Assembly Rooms rumbles on after a spirited electors’ meeting last Thursday which left Alton Town Council in no doubt – “you’ve got it wrong!”

Set up by Assembly Rooms user Christopher Saye and headed by former town mayor Pam Bradford, it was a meeting that social media respondents believe will be remembered “for its passion and its oratory from an impressively large turnout of the public”.

Putting their heads on the line to defend Alton Town Council’s position, were leader Peter Hicks and his town and district colleague, Graham Hill, who stuck doggedly to the party line, reiterating the fact that the town council had already agreed at a full council meeting on February 10 to enter into an operating contract with Alton Community Association to provide caretaking, booking and marketing services for the Assembly Rooms.

It was made clear from the outset that the town council had invited Alton Community Association to take on this role in good faith and that no criticism of the association would be tolerated.

But it was open house on condemnation of the town council for lack of transparency in its decision-making process and, worse still, lack of public consultation.

While urging the authority to have the courage to revisit the decision, several speakers, some experienced in former public lives, urged the town council to hold up its collective hands and use the opportunity to “start again”, using public consultation as a source of inspiration in a bid to protect what everyone agreed was a “valuable public asset”.

And one which, both Mr Hicks and Mr Hill assured the meeting, was in absolutely no danger of being sold and converted into flats.

Nonetheless, the town council was obliged to get the best value for money from this asset.

Mr Hill said: “We have the service that we want but we want it at a lower cost. We are simply proposing an outsourcing service delivery contract with Alton Community Association. The Alton Community Association option, we believe, is the best way forward.”

But it was an uphill struggle with the two councillors challenged over finance, breaches of data protection, lack of a tendering process and of a business plan, and of a possible conflict of interest over the running of future events.

While one speaker likened the situation to the sinking of the Titanic, the mood of the meeting was best summed up by Luath Grant Ferguson who, having described himself as a founder member of both Alton Town Council and Alton Community Association, said he was “angry and ashamed of the council to which I used to belong”.

In hinting that the council’s performance could attract the attention of the Local Government Ombudsman, he pointed out that there was “no proper documentation, no consultation, no business plan…you do not have the town’s confidence”, and without that, said Mr Grant Ferguson, this matter should be taken back to the drawing board.

Of Alton Community Association, he said that having struggled for many years and turned a corner, his advice would be to “concentrate on what you are doing and don’t touch this with a barge pole”.

As the only other town councillor present, Graham Titterington made his opposition clear, throwing doubt over “potential savings” and over the commercial logic of losing the Assembly Rooms management team, warning: “Alton Community Association is in the room hire not event staging business.”

In the absence of any representation from Alton Community Association, former town councillor and community association trustee David Willoughby made the case for the association’s financial competence and organising abilities.

But it was district and county councillor Andrew Joy who, speaking as a member of the public, attempted to offer a way forward, recalling similar public outrage over proposals to close the Curtis Museum and Allen Gallery.

He said: “Out of that difficulty came a solution from the townsfolk themselves which was to staff the facilities with volunteers.”

It was, he suggested, a model that could be used again to “investigate increasing the Assembly Rooms performance instead of cutting it”.

In the event, those electors who were eligible voted unanimously to “reject any plans for the Alton Community Association to take over the running of the Assembly Rooms until the electors and users of the assembly have been publicly consulted.”