Expansion of Wilfrid Noyce Centre
Godalming Residents are being asked to let the council know if they should borrow £300K to complete Phase two of the Wilfrid Noyce Centre refurbishment programme.
Twelve months on from its official re-opening on 12 March last year, the Wilfrid Noyce Centre is ‘bursting at the seams.’ The unprecedented success of the Wilfrid Noyce Centre has seen it welcome over 40,000 visitors through its doors in the last year to make use of its facilities. With a typical week seeing over 35 to 40 different activities at the centre, ranging from mother and toddler groups, the Royal Surrey County Hospital physiotherapy department, theatre groups, and wellbeing groups right through to special occasion parties, operatic performances, youth theatre shows, film nights and band gigs plus many community fundraising events such as camel racing and quiz nights; more space is needed.
To be able to fund phase 2 of the refurbishment, which will see a third hall built on the site, Godalming Town Council will, as it did for the majority of the funding for phase 1, have to borrow the funds. The Council is inviting residents to visit the centre on Friday 17 and Friday 24 March between 10am and 4pm where they will be able to see the plans for phase 2 and let the Council know if they are in in favour of it applying for a PWLB loan of £300,000 over 29.5 years to complete Phase 2 of the Wilfrid Noyce Refurbishment Project. The annual repayments for this loan will be approximately £14,674. The repayments will come from the precept budget just like the Council’s two previous loans and works out at a net cost after income generation of about 49p a year for each band D equivalent property.
Come and have a look at the proposed plans on Friday, 24 March or Saturday, 25 March between the hours of 10.00am and 4.00pm at the Wilfrid Noyce Centre and have your say on whether Phase 2 should go ahead.