Agenda item

34.1

The Sub-Committee had received one remit question from a member of the public.

Caroline Dewar, on behalf of the Friends of Graves Park, attended the meeting and asked the following question:

“Regarding the Restoration of the next section of the Norton Nurseries in Graves Park back to parkland by Friends of Graves Park Volunteers:

Bearing in mind that FOGP are committed to funding the restoration, with no cost to the council and that the land identified is virtually unused and should not affect the council running an unlicensed depot from the used part of the site, will the Charity Sub-committee please, urgently, agree to land for the next section of Chantreyland Meadow and Arboretum (as identified in the questions of 22-1-24) being released to Friends of Graves Park with immediate effect, for fencing off while being restored back to parkland, then once complete, reopened to public use, as first ordered by the Charity Commission in 1998, thus going some way to restoring the council’s position with the Charity Commission?

And:

Can the Charity Subcommittee guarantee that plans to bring the greenhouses back into use won’t adversely affect the Friends of Graves Park’s long-standing request to restore the Norton Nurseries site back to parkland and that the proposed use won’t include any use of the next section for the proposed arboretum, nor adversely affect the FOGP volunteers’ storage of equipment on site?”

The Chair advised that a written response would be provided to the first part of the question, this would be sent to the questioner and published on the Council’s website.

The Chair provided the following verbal response to the second part of the question:

“Food Works have been on site for several weeks now and we are not aware of any issues between their bringing the glasshouses back into use in order to grow food and the Friends access to storage. The room used by the Friends for storage was of course not included in the Food Works lease. There is no reason to assume that the ongoing use of the glasshouses will impact on the current or proposed access to any other parts of the Norton Nurseries site.”