Golcar Scout and community centre asset transfer bid put into question despite being given go-ahead by Kirklees Council three months ago

A bid to take over Golcar’s community centre has been put into question despite being given the go-ahead only three months ago.

Leaders of the 4th Huddersfield Golcar Scout Group are now in the dark about whether their asset transfer bid will be given the full thumbs up after confusion broke out over who was going to run and manage it.

The drama began a few weeks ago when scout leader, Craig Ellis, whose group is based at the Manor Road building, was told that the transfer had been slowed down.

He said: “There are now complications due to the legalities of who is going to be the party officially responsible for the running and maintaining the building.

“As a scout group we have enlisted the help of the Scout Association Trust Corporation, who will act as the trustee for the building.

“It wasn’t mentioned in the original bid so now Kirklees Council are reconsidering the bid to see if the community transfer is still viable.

“We really hope staff see it as a simple oversight and misunderstanding, that the application will be put back on track and that we’ll have full control by this Christmas - it would be a great present to both the group and community.

“We started talking about taking over the site in 2009 and since then a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into trying to make it a reality.

“It has already taken far too long to complete the transfer, we were the first to apply for the ownership transfer so have had to jump through lots of hoops and navigate red tape.

“It feels like for every step forward we take we have to go three steps back and it would be very disappointing for the whole community if we have to resubmit the bid all over again.”

Priceless time and work has been funnelled into the building by volunteers since they took on a 10 year lease agreement in 2011.

Transformed from a rundown ‘shell’ with broken glass and in a bad state of repair, it now boasts several revamped rooms, meeting spaces and an allotment and has become a community hub which is also the home of dozens of other community groups including Little Explorers nursery, the Golcar Winkle Group and Golcar Lily group.

Craig said: “We just hope the council can see the takeover as a positive thing that has done a lot for Golcar - the building’s now used for 60 hours a week instead of just 13 and it’s no longer losing lots of money.

“We had lots of big ideas for the building that we were considering following the transfer bid, such as opening a dedicated community section for groups to use and creating a big community IT suite.

“Another large project we were talking about was creating the first Scouting heritage centre in West Yorkshire, which would focus on the movement in the Colne Valley.

“If they say no then we will have seven years to look for other premises but don’t want to do that in the slightest because the Scout centre is in a great central place that also doesn’t disturb residents or would try resubmit a bid but its taken a lot out of our team of volunteers to do this the first time around and there is only so much that they will be prepared to do.”

A spokeswoman from Kirklees Council, said: “The council is continuing to work with the group to resolve the details of the application and enable the asset transfer to take place and we believe that this should be possible without another application having to be submitted.”