Under pressure from GHRA Milton Keynes Council agree to spend £390,000 to renovate the Community Centre. Following representations from residents on Galley Hill led by GHRA spokesman Paul Randall, Stony Stratford Town Councillor Roy Adams, GHRA chair David Taverner and GHRA committee member Sue Fitch, Pete Marland, Leader of Milton Kes Council announced at the full MK Council meeting on Wednesday 24th February that MKC will spend £390,000 to renovate the Community Centre on Galley Hill.It has been three years since the former Arts Centre part of the building was closed, and since then, the council had repeatedly said that they would look to renovate the building and bring it back to community use. Following complaints by residents in the recent MK budget consultation that the community centre renovation had been “missed out” from the budget numbers, Paul Randall lobbied Stony Stratford Town Council sucessfully to write to Milton Keynes Council to ask for funding for the community centre. Paul, Roy, David and Sue gave advance notice of “questions from members of the public” about the funding on order paper of the MK Council’s meeting on Wednesday night. At the start of the debate on the budget , Peter Marland announced that funding would be made available. All GHRA’s hard work in this area has finally paid off!
Thank you to all involved and everyone who supported the GHRA by filling in the recent survey and helping apply pressure on MKC.
Can we ask a couple of favours from everyone, please? As you see from the newsletter, we are trying to persuade Milton Keynes Council to allocate money in this year’s budget to repair and renovate the Community Centre, so that can be used for community use. First favour: Please can you email budget@milton-keynes.gov.uk to point out that their draft budget has forgotten to include any funds for the Galley Hill Community Centre, pointing out that it has just been left to deteriorate for the past three years since the Arts Centre was closed. Also can you encourage others to email, please? It might be an idea to copy in the leader of the Council – ( Peter.Marland@Milton-keynes.gov.uk) and the official in charge of budget scrutiny – (Elizabeth.Richardson@milton-keynes.gov.uk) into the emails to add to the pressure.
2nd favour : On Tuesday night, the Stony Stratford Town Council meets (virtually) at 7 o’clock. The first 15 minutes are allocated to members of the public to raise any issues. Paul Randall is going to use this time to ask SSTC to write to Milton Keynes Council to allocate funds for the community centre. It would be very helpful if as many people as possible could also join the meeting to support what Paul has to say. You won’t have to stay for the whole meeting – you can click out after the first 15 minutes once the matter has been discussed.
To arrange to join the meeting, as a member of the public, please contact office@stonystratford.gov.uk Many thanks
The GHRA Committee would like to thank the MK Community Foundation for their generous funding to buy tablet computers for the residents of Galley Hill to use. The money has been used to purchase tablets which will be loaned to GH residents who would like to stay in touch with relatives or friends further afield. Thanks to the MK Community Foundation we have been able to afford several tablet computers for this purpose.
Thank you from the GHRA Committee, and residents of Galley Hill.
Website for the Galley Hill Residents Association, Milton Keynes
