At our January meeting Mr. G. Woollard again used the Public Comment Time slot.

This time to refer to the previous meeting when he spoke about the refurbishment of the Pavilion, when he mentioned it’s estimated cost, and in the light of this suggested that a referendum be held to ascertain if the people of Soham wanted this refurbishment.

This time he said that the cost was not mentioned in the minutes neither the suggestion of a referendum.

He was told that this was an agenda item that would be discussed later in the meeting.

Community Facilities Working Party: At the latest meeting of this committee, they were told that Acre who had been looking for funding to complete the cost of the project had not been able to do so.

In the light of this the project needed to be scaled back.

Those who had seen the proposed plans will know that a large Hall was going to be built on the side of the refurbished pavilion, this will now not be built and new plans and costing will be made to suit.

This will enable the work to go ahead.

It is hoped that in the future the large Hall might be built when further development of Soham will make funds available for this to happen.

People will remember that the resolution from the first consultation said that Soham need a Community Meeting Place, and whatever happens the pavilion needed to be refurbished, and the council took this option onboard and worked hard and despite disappointments along the way got to this stage only to fall short of total funding.

Even so the re-modelling of the Pavilion and the new approach road, and lighting will be a big and welcoming improvement.

This in itself should give great encouragement to finish the job.