STAFF at Thurrock Adult Community College have responded with shock and anger at plans laid out by the Thurrock Conservative group to close the college in Richmond Road and sell of the land.
The plan was a key part of the amendments made to the budget successfully proposed by the Conservatives and supported by the Independent councillors in East Tilbury and Concerned Conservative Stuart St-Clair-Haslam.
Chair of Governors, Mike Rawlings said he had been met by staff in tears on Wednesday morning.
He said: “This is a shock to the governing body, staff and learners as it comes out of the blue with no warnings or consultation.
“Our initial view is that the potential financial gain will be out-weighed by loss of community learning, community and voluntary sector use of the facilities and the closure of community child-care facilities on site.
“Couple this with the loss of funding from the government to Thurrock for community learning which cannot go the FE/HE establishments it does not appear to stack up in the long term. Certainly the new campus, unless anyone knows better, is many, many years away from fruition”.
Wednesday morning saw a large number of council officer meetings cancelled as they faced a frantic month of putting into place the Tory amendments.
Officers at the Thameside Theatre and Grays Beach Park were dumbfounded as the news broke that there were plans mooted to sell off their place of employment to private companies.
One officer, who did not wish to be named said: “Not one Tory seems to have picked up the phone to let us know what their plans were.”
Another piece of anti-conservative reporting…
Where’s the articles on cutting PCSO’s?
The justification for subsidising a private company that provides no benefit to residents except a few to the tune of over 250k?
You wont see them on here.
The way in which the Thurrock Tories played this is beyond belief. The ammendments were put in front of the chamber at exactly 7pm as the meeting was about to start.
Not one member of staff from the Adult community college, Thameside Theatre, Grays Beach were consulted or given any inclination what they were about to do to the local services. The tories made sure of this because quiet rightly these people would have wanted to see the whites of the tories eyes as they proposed to let ther axe fall.
The two East Tilbury Independents are equally to blame along with Stuart St Clare Haslam who used their votes to get the cuts through.
Gary Hague had spent the entire week courting the press saying they were the party to protect front line services. Well you have been well and truly caught out this time and lets hope that every person that works or attends a course at the college lets you know exactly how they feel on May 5th when you will be held to account for stitching up Thurrocks community on a grand scale.
As a member of staff at the College I cannot believe that the this has happened. Perhaps Mr Hague would like to face the parents and carers of our very vulnerable adutls who love coming here for lessons, our literacy and numeracy students and our ESOL students to tell them that they are going to be denied a place to save money.and It was done in a way that we had no inkling beforehand and certainly did not get a chance to go to the council chamber to even see the proceedings.
The College is a life line to many of our students and we have had great successes with students who have had very negative experiences in learning in the past, who have gone from strength to strength here in our small and unique community college.
I think that the closure of the Adult Education Centre is an absolute travesty, this centre provides numerous adults with the opportunity to better themselves through education, have TBC got plans to move these opportunities to other areas?
the way this has been voted on without the consultation of the staff / pupils and residents of Richmond / Bridge road is completley out of order and goes completley against the democratic process.
An action group should be set up to block this closure and I would be willing to lend my support to this
Once again we have a prime example of the “caring conservatives”.They vote to close our Adult Education Centre and say it should be incorperated in the new educational development being built in the town. At best this development is some 5 years or so away, if it actually goes ahead at all. So for the next 5 years the residents of Thurrock who attended the courses and classes at the AEC can have an extended sabbatical. As well as the normal lessons offered by the centre they also cater for vulnerable adults and many students who in the past have struggled with their education.
The decision to close the AEC came out of the blue without any noitice of this proposal to the staff and users of the centre or indeed the local residents of Richmond Rd who would be subject to the noise and disruption that building houses on the site would bring with it.
i just hope the staff, users and local residents remember how they have been treated by the Thurrock Conservatives when it comes to casting their votes in May for the local elections.
What ever your political views the closure of the Adult Education College is a new low for Thurrock. No consultation just a 7pm execution! Bring on the Action Group I will willingly support and so I believe will thousands of others. Start writing / Emailing / Twittering / Face booking NOW!
While agreeing with the other posters on this piece, it was interesting to read the first comment by truth_not_lies who seems to feel this website is anti-Tory. Below is a comment I wanted to post under the “Gerry Hague tells John Kent ‘You’re in office but not in power!’” story but for some reason that page will not allow me to make a comment.
‘This is a direct question for the editor:
Is Your Thurrock a news service or is it just a mouthpiece of the local conservative party?
This article appears, particularly with the words in bold font, to be nothing more than a promotion of the local Conservative Party line. What is it doing on here without any context or balancing comment. It is either shoddy journalism or a political advertisement. Surely, even editorial commentary would generally show a little more objectivity.
What standards do you set yourself in terms of news reporting?’
Apparently, for some any criticism is too much to take.
Perhaps Your Thurrock can interview Mr Hague or one of his crew to justify this proposal? The new FHE campus is still the council carpark at the moment so one must assume the student will be taught amongst the council workers cars?
LETS PROTEST………………….
Lets get this done and show Thurrock tories what the residents of Thurrock, staff at the college, people who have accessed the courses past – present and future think about the proposed plans to close down adult eduction in Grays.
Lets have a demonstation in Grays Town Centre on a Saturday followed by one at the next council meeting on Wednesday 30th March at 7pm.
Lets get residents that care about privatising GRAYS BEACH – THAMESIDE THEATRE and our COMMUNITY CENTRES there to.
Thurrock tories need to be told ‘ We dont want these cuts and PRIVATISATION . Not in our back yard.
As I have posted eleshewhere, cuts had to be made and somebody somewhere was going to feel the pain. Does Grays Beach make money or is it run at a loss? Ditto for the Thameside. If they are run at a loss then surely it’s right to try to offload them onto private enterprise? I guess they must lose money because the council would certainly keep them if they made a profit. If they are losing money it can only be because not enough people use them so what would be the point in keeping them? If you want to have a moan about losing the adult education centre that’s fine but you surely have to come up with something else that could be cut instead? For the record, I happen to agree that cutting the centre completely is a mistake. Surely it would have been better to scale operations down as a way of saving money? Then again, I can’t think of what else should or could be cut to keep even limited courses going.
Grays64 – for the record the college does not cost the council a penny. All of the funding that runs the college comes from a government funding agency and this pays for the classes and support NOT Thurrock Council. This is why the figure of a saving £50k seems to have been plucked out of thin air and I am looking foward to hearing the justification for this from Mr Hague and his party. So it isn’t a case of shutting the college or finding £50k from elsewhere as we are independently funded. I suspect this politically motivated not financially and is a case of political point scoring.
jinksbella, thanks for that, I didn’t know that was the case. Does that money also cover the maintenance of the building? If it does then it is extremely difficult to see how the council can, in effect, withhold the money from the college and use it elsewhere. Would I be right to say that with the college closed the funding would still be made available to the council? I would certainly like more info.
Grays64, the College pays for all maintenance, bills etc from the funding. This is why the figure of a saving of £50k from Mr Hague and his party is so confusing. Lets hope some solid information, backed up with facts and figures is forthcoming.
I have sent an email to TBC to get the full reasoning behind this closure, if I get a response I will post it on here, I have also been in contact with the College to lend my support to any action that they they will be taking, I will also be trying to rally the support of the residents of Richmond Road and the other roads in the directly affected area.
Sting, I agree that demonstartions need to take place but these need to be organised so there is a complete collective of people that are against these enforced crazy cuts.
“Never let the facts get in the way of a good news story”
I’d be very intrigued to see what response you get Lambo. My understanding is that the Adult Community College isn’t closing down. Rather, it is being moved to be housed in the currently vastly under-utilised “temporary” learning campus building opposite the Civic Offices. If the learning campus proper is ever built (probably not within my lifetime) the service will transfer to the main building.