NEWTON’S PLACE
A CENTREPIECE AND A POINT OF HISTORY
COMMUNITY crowdfunding for the visionary Newton’s Place project hit its £10,000 target in March, including a £5,000 donation from engineering firm Centrax, £1,750 from the Newton Abbot Community Trust (originally set up to revitalise Golden Lion Square), and £1,000 from Newton Abbot Rotary Club. The money will help cover design costs for the project. The venture has already attracted a £150,000 development grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to kick- start groundwork and the HLF hopefully will confirm its support for a further £800,000 grant, to be determined in June, after which the town council can go out to tender for specialist builders to start work this autumn. Planning permission was given in February and work is expected to start in mid-late autumn.
Council clerk Phil Rowe said: ‘As soon as we get the go-ahead for the Lottery funding we will be putting together a full specification to go out to tender and will let the contract as early as we can after that. The first thing the successful contractors will do is take the roof off. The good news is that 80 per cent of the tiles are fine; we only need to match about 20 per cent and we have located second-hand Welsh slate tiles of the same dimensions.’ And if all goes according to plan, the development of the former St Leonard’s Church will be open to the public in autumn 2019.
Head of Heritage Lottery Fund South
West Nerys Watts welcomed the scheme last July and said: ‘It’s clear that a lot of work, support and passion have gone into these plans and we’re very excited to play a role in helping them become a reality. We look forward to seeing the plans develop.’ And MP Ann Marie Morris (pictured with museum curator Felicity Cole) said the development would make ‘a fantastic difference’ to the town, creating ‘a real centrepiece and a point of history’ that everybody could be proud of. Meanwhile the public can still make their own donations to Newton’s Place by cash or cheque
16 NEWTON ABBOT TOWN GUIDE
through the museum or town hall. A PayPal account is also being set up.
PRECEPT
In order to help aid its immediate overall funding, the town council has adopted a council tax precept of £827,996 for 2018/19. Though an 11.29 per cent rise on a Band D property, the figure represents just 18p per week or £9.42 for the year and covers a loss of council tax support grant, which will fall from £70,000 annually to zero by 2020, the increases in costs of grass verge cutting, maintaining the Newfoundland Way toilets and providing town centre flower beds and £19,000 towards the loan supporting the conversion of St Leonard’s Church, the town council’s contribution to the ‘delivery phase’.
Mr Rowe said: ‘It is important to remember that both the principal councils have services which are paid for, car parking for example, which means they can increase charges to create more income. The Town Council only has liabilities, and these are being added to by TDC and DCC dropping services that cost and are picked up by the Town
Council. Also, TDC was able to purchase an asset like Market Walk which gives it around an eight per cent return on a £13 million investment. Again, NATC has no such luxury; its only source of income is council tax.’
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