Quote: Mrs Barista "At present, nothing, as the council have not been offered any plans to look at. Perhaps the council will provide a range of options on which to vote, should there be enough detail and sensible financials to build the options for the council to prepare the referendum papers on. I'm sure this will be the case, as it's surely only the council that are being unreasonable here.
Look, there's a stand-off because Mr Allam is demanding an agreement to sell the KC as a pre-requisite to talks. The council have moved on their position. I think they should be applauded for this, for making the first move. As said, if there's genuine will by Mr Allam to do this scheme at a fair price, we'll see some similar movement from him. What has he conceded on so far? I don't understand why you are still so down on the council but defending the position of Mr Allam when only one of the parties has moved and it's not him.
I think the council are calling his bluff, and if he is as reasonable as you suggest, this will play into his hands. They promised a referendum. They are being reasonable in requesting more detail than the famous secret £3k plans for the voters to use as a basis for their decision. Presumably to do so there will be some independent validation of the good value for money this represents before it goes to the people. Why not suggest that Mr Allam gives some ground now the council have put an offer in place, rather than continuing to criticise them? Very odd.'"
I wouldn't disagree with much of that. What I would say is that I'm not particularly down on the Council, it just appears that way because I keep having to point out where some posters on here are being pro-Council and anti-Allam, which is fine but their justifications don't tend to bare scrutiny.
The stand off is primarily due to the poor way it as dealt with, which could be why there's different people commenting now, albeit somewhat clumsily if they're genuine about wanting a resolution. I suspect the calling of bluffs you see is more the realisation that they've come out of this looking amateur in the eyes of much of the electorate and potential investors, irrespective of their views on Mr Alams proposals.
I've mentioned before about the plans, but will repeat it anyway, schemes such as these rarely start of with rigid plans, they have perhaps design and access or planning statements. The Council are being short sighted asking for a firm set of plans at this stage. What they should be doing is sitting down, discussing the concepts and principles, finding areas of agreement and then focusing on possible resolutions and compromise to areas of conflict.
That doesn't mean kowtowing to demands, it means looking for realistic workable options. If they then reach an impasse then it can be shelved, but closing talks on much needed investment at this early stage looks foolish.
What else we need are the Council's plans for the area and their proposed funding mechanisms before we can have a referendum on these plans.
