Does Exeter Want a New Pool or a New Theatre?
Does Exeter want a new pool or a new theatre? That is the question hotly debated in the Express & Echo over recent weeks. It's a fairly meaningless debate for now as the Labour-dominated Council has already decided on Exeter's behalf.
The new pool so beloved of the Labour hierarchy has become their Stalingrad - an objective so symbolic that all other priorities have to make way for it, our future mortgaged to it. The original quote for a replacement to the expiring Pyramids pool was £7m at the Clifton Hill site, but this version has spiralled to £26 million - which divided between the 42,000 homes in Exeter is a cost of £620 each.
When the new museum was planned, the Council intended to pay £7 million towards it. In the end the bill was £16 million after a series of discoveries such as a Roman ditch, a wall without foundations and a fundamental flaw in the plans for the air conditioning requiring a redesign.
The soothing reassurances about the cost control of the proposed pool sound hauntingly familiar to similar assurances before the museum project. After the museum was built on credit, Exeter services were slashed - remember our four festivals - Summer, Autumn, Vibraphonic and Animated. The Community Patrol is gone, management cut back, bins removed, the cleanliness of our streets regressing. Staff are harder to get hold of as posts and functions have been amalgamated and we are 'channel shifted' onto cheaper remote communication methods. All of these reductions and more at a time when the overall funding from government continued unchanged throughout the coalition years. Remarkably, the sacrifice of public sector jobs to pay for a private sector construction project has gone by with just a whimper by the local unions. Something only a Labour Council could get away with.
People may be happy to pay £620 for the facility of a new pool and also be happy to then pay the entry fee to use it. They may believe Cllr Edwards when he says that it will be a money-spinner, when there is negligible private sector interest in such a vivid opportunity. That is a judgement call for local election voters to make.
Scepticism about the building of a pool has been associated by many with the aspiration to build a top quality theatre instead in Exeter. Cllr Peter Holland and his Conservative colleagues suggested a feasibility study to look into such a proposal having suddenly taken fright at the rising costs of the pool. It's too late. It should be noted that the planned pool will stretch the Council's finances to the limit and there is then no prospect of a new theatre created by trimming a bit here and there. It is a remarkable volte face by the Conservatives in Exeter who for years joined Labour in deriding Liberal Democrat concerns and as recently as February this year voted for the Labour budget with the pool at its epicentre, beyond the point of no return. Only Liberal Democrats voted against it yet again.
If a theatre is ever to be delivered, it will need a permanent subsidy. Any implied suggestion that it can be delivered by a sleight of hand in public finances is nonsense - hard cash will be required, every year. There is a legitimate and vocal campaign for a theatre and it is right that the proposal should be rigorously considered. However the costs should not be hidden from the city as a whole. If a feasibility study is completed, it should identify the likely subsidy required. Alternative budgets should be prepared, one option with an increase in the Council tax to fully cover that subsidy and one option without a theatre at all. For example, if a million pound per year subsidy was identified, a £25 per year increase in Council tax would be proposed. Then the matter should be put to a referendum with a clear question. A theatre with a permanent increase to the Council tax, or no theatre and other services delivered within existing resources. A clear prospectus with costs attached and the citizens deciding directly after specific debate.
Labour's intransigent rejection of a theatre has the virtue of clarity. Conservative hints of a study without a further proposal are opportunist and like a carrot on a stick. If people want an exciting major theatre in Exeter and are prepared to pay an annual subscription for it, local politicians should ensure there is an indisputable mandate for it in the form of a local referendum.
Adrian Fullam
Liberal Democrat
Former Exeter City Council Leader (2008-2010)