| Letter
to the Chairman of the MG Car Club,
A
very substantial number of Club members, including many
CRB committee members, are totally dissatisfied with the
lack of clear information on the New Club Office scheme.
After more than 15 months and the expenditure of over £50,000
we still have no justification for the size and scale of
the development, no accurate estimate of the total project
costs, no statement of the intended funding plan or estimate
of the amount of debt it is proposed to take on, no projection
of the Club's operating surplus to demonstrate affordability,
and no indication of how the demise of MG Rover might affect
the Club. These are fundamental matters which any responsible
management team should have addressed and presented to members
of the Council by this stage of the preparation of the project.
Other
concerns are that no alternatives to the present New Club
Office scheme (the Applin design) have ever been seen by
members, and the Council resolution requiring alternative
solutions has been interpreted so narrowly by you that the
intention was effectively thwarted. We also understand that
the planning consent for the Applin design obtained the
other day was approved by a small majority of planning committee
members and against opposition from the Town Council and
local residents. We are concerned by the inevitable souring
relationships with neighbours. We understand that you have
had no discussions at all with the Douglas Mickel Trust,
the owners of the present Club Office property, for some
10 months.
We
are also very disturbed by the way the motions proposed
by Dennis Barker (T Register), David Rainsbury (NW Centre),
David Washbourne (SVW Register) and David Waterton (V8 Register)
to appoint a subcommittee of Council to review all aspects
of the New Club Office project were kept off the agenda
of the March 2005 Council meeting, the seriously misleading
remarks made about this by Stephen Cox in the May 2005 issue
of Safety Fast! and by the refusal of the Editor
of Safety Fast! to publish the letter from the Chairman
of the T Register correcting this. Equally none of the letters
to Safety Fast! critical of the project that we know
have been written and submitted for publication have appeared.
We
call upon the Executive Committee from now until October
2005 (or until all matters relating to any New Club Office
scheme are finally resolved) to ensure the publication in
the next available issue of Safety Fast! of all articles
or letters already received on this matter and all that
may be submitted to the Editor by any Club member in full
and without editing or censorship and under an explanatory
heading to be approved by us. We trust that the Executive
Committee will recognise that publishing material from Club
members can only assist the open and consultative process
which is appropriate in a members' Club like the MG Car
Club, and we look forward to confirmation from the Chairman
that this wholly reasonable requirement is accepted.
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