WHITEHILL Town Council has thrown the troubled management of the Forest Community Centre a lifeline, after granting them £4,000 to get through to the end of the year. At the tense meeting of the town council on Monday councillors heard that the Whitehill Bordon Community Association (WBCA) needs to cover a deficit of £6,000 before the end of the year, otherwise it will have to hand over power to the district council. Facing difficult times ahead, the WBCA has had to take remedial action and has made a redundancy. The caretaker of the building will no longer be employed and general maintenance of the building will become the responsibility of other staff. Chairman Jo Jordan said: "We have taken advice from everyone involved, and we would not be going down this route if it wasn't the only option. "What we're looking at is not a broken machine, and we're doing everything we can." The WBCA has been using its reserve funding for three years in order to cover mounting costs, and has now reached a critical point after using up all spare funds. If it cannot raise enough money by the end of this year, the trustees will be personally liable to cover commitments to staff. Accountant and treasurer of the WBCA Andrew Stubberfield said: "We've been losing money for three years and that continues now. We can't keep writing cheques for money that isn't there – enough is enough. "We have liabilities to the remaining staff, and we have to have enough money to satisfy those. Some would say it's too late for this redundancy. "If we have not got enough money to keep it going, we are not going to take the money out of our own pockets." The town council plays a key role in the funding of the WBCA, and has been involved since its establishment. Mr Stubberfield said: "This building is here because of the town council – they started it off, raised the money and it is clearly a facility that is valued by the community, but it won't run on fresh air." The WBCA raises two thirds of its funding costs by letting rooms at the centre, but relies on regular grants from the town council to keep it afloat. Mr Stubberfield said: "It's an expensive building to run, and in an area where it's difficult to get commercial income for the space, some grant issuing body has to keep finance in place. "That is the situation, and it is unrealistic to think that the letting of rooms will cover costs." Concerns were raised that the amount requested was too much, and the emergency request for £6,000 was an underhand way of asking for more money. However, Jo Jordan argued that the centre could not continue without a top-up of money, regardless of the management of the centre. She said: "If we have failed and this WBCA has to close – that's not going to be cheap. If we're going to reinvent the wheel, it will cost money." New initiatives have been launched at the centre, in the hope that extra activity could help to attract more users and more money. The recently held Bordon Bands Night and the multicultural arts events both saw good turnouts, and it is hoped their success will continue. Forest Centre manager Lindsay Kelly has written to several other grant bodies, and it is hoped that these organisations will be able to cover the outstanding £2,000 before Christmas.
