Monday, 13 August 2007

This morning I met with Dorothy Thornhill, Watford’s elected Mayor. WBC is still suffering from the major flood they suffered earlier this year. In the municipal grandness and vastness of Watford Town Hall, our elected Mayor is currently “making do” in a small spartan office slightly off the beaten track. Something about this is very endearing and very British.

Briefly, it amused me to suspect some elaborate charade to impress the voluntary sector and that nearby Dorothy had a second grander office with a marble desk, hardwood parquet block flooring, Persian rugs, Louis XV chairs and a crystal chandelier.

But more seriously, Dorothy and I had a precise hour to talk through several issues vaguely clustered under the heading of “accommodation” but covering in one broad sweep: Watford CVS’s own accommodation needs, the accommodation needs of Watford’s voluntary sector as a whole, the Community Development challenge, the Third Sector Strategy issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the concept of “Community Anchors”, the Office of the Third Sector review on The Future of the Third Sector in Social and Economic Regeneration, Community Foundation endowments, the Quirk Report, the Community Assets Fund, the use of section 106 agreements for community gain, Community engagement, the role of faith groups, Leavesden Green Community Centre, Watford Palace Theatre’s old furniture store, the Local Strategic Partnership, and future liaison between WBC and Watford CVS.

It was pretty intense.

The end results were that we needed to improve liaison, we should accelerate moves toward a more strategic approach to section 106 agreements, and we should take an early decision on a Watford bid to the Community Assets Fund for either the Furniture Store or possibly Leavesden Green Community Centre.

In the afternoon, I visited Leavesden Green Community Centre and was given a brief tour. The Centre accommodates some important local services but it is pretty bleak and is in dire need of a renovation programme. And large parts of the site are unused for large parts of the week. Food for thought.