College denies groups shut out

There was an angry reaction from groups when they were told by the college that it could not accept bookings after January 1 2011.

Protesters accused the college of breaching an S106 planning agreement, which they say guarantees the building is kept for community use.

But college principal Sue Middlehurst denied this and spoke out this week to clarify the situation.

She said: “We have now said we will take bookings up to the end of January and the building will be closed for a period after that while important maintenance work is carried out, such as installing more toilets.

“This will also give us time to draw up a business plan for the building, which is currently running at a loss.

“We do not want to exclude community groups and are more than happy for them to use the building when we are not using it.

“We also want to look at introducing ideas that came from the survey we conducted.

“There seems to be some confusion here. The S106 does not even come into force until planning permission has been approved and even then the condition mentions nothing at all about community use.

“It states that the building must not be used for business, trade or residential.

“The overall condition states that it must be retained as an educational facility.

“Some are seeing it as a community centre – it is not. It is a college owned centre to provide education and training in the Rye community.”

Mrs Middlehurst was full of praise for plans to open the new Fletcher Arts Centre on the site, which would include a theatre and cinema.

“She said: “I was very impressed with the plans and as a college we would want to support them.

“Ideally if it got planning permission we could work with them.

“It is a situation where everyone would be a winner.”

Meanwhile Andy Stuart, who runs WEA courses at Lion Street, successfully asked Rye Town Council to: “Write to Rother District Councils Planning Commitee’s officers and members protesting in the strongest possible terms about SCCH’s continued attempts to shut Rye’s FE Centre by wilfully obstructing long-term community users’ ability to book the center whilst having already sealed a S106 Agreement guaranteeing community use, and push Rother Planning to insert a condition that its signing of the S106 requires the FE Centre to be operational prior to and at the point of any sale, and that the purchaser be required to become a signatory before the permission for residential development can be transferred to him.”