Next steps in opening a café in the park announced

A BUSINESS will be sought to run the café in the pavilion in the King George V playing field. Following a visit to other cafes running within parks, councillors suggested that private businesses should be asked to tender and come forward with proposals to run the space.

The town council previously held a public survey about what should happen to the park pavilion, which gained 57 responses, with the highest number of requests for a commercial café with toilets, and for the building to be well maintained.

At the asset management and amenities meeting on Monday 5th December, cllr Jon Hubbard shared the results of the trip that he took with cllr Jack Oatley; they visited three locations; Alice Park in Bath, Warminster Town Park, and Hillworth Park in Devizes.

Speaking about their findings cllr Jon Hubbard said, “We were lucky enough to have conversations with all three venues and the main takeaway is that the most professional and most welcoming cafes were the ones run by the private sector and if that is the one that would deliver income, then I think we can put this out and ask someone to professionally run it and pay us some money and deliver this need in the community. Or we can do it ourselves, knowing we are going to have to cough up to run it and even if we did, it was going to become another drain on our pre-set.”

However, cllr Safi Ravey raised concern that putting this space out to tender could result in no-one coming forward to run it, which is what has happened at the Campus. She said, “The Campus has now gone out to tender for the café there and have done so three times and not had a single person apply. I don’t think you are going to get a load of people stepping forward.”

She also raised concern that the initial public survey into what the community wanted to see happen with the Pavilion did not have ‘enough’ responses suggesting this was not a true reflection on what the town is wanting to do.

However, cllr Jon Hubbard said, “The numbers of this are low, but reinforces a clear message that we have received from the general park survey. People want more toilets and a café.

“The tender for the café in the campus is different to the tender for the café in the park. The tender in the café in the Campus is linked to a tender for other things. The Wiltshire Council tender and their expectations are different to what we would be having. I am aware of at least two parties that are interested in being able to bid to run the facility at the Pavilion.”

Following this discussion, the town council voted to proceed in putting this out to tender for privately-owned businesses to propose running the space, specifically highlighting in their proposal, the social benefit to the community in doing so.