I an rather under the impression that Pacific Road was built using European Funding. If the Council closes it down so soon after it opened they will have to pay the money back to Brussels.

I thought the Council was short of money owing to its mismanagement? Are the Councillors and officers going to borrow the money to pay back the European Union?

Alan Stennard is quoted in the article on Pacific Road that it runs at a 'deficit of £120k - £150k'. I know this not to be the case. The venue has running costs, but the financial targets set by the council have been met for the last two years.
Mr Stennard says that the 'venue has not been the success that they had hoped' - by what measure? Pacific Road is widely regarded as a unique and valuable local resource hosting a range of talent and greatly enriching the cultural life of Birkenhead and Wirral.
Mr Stennard is also quoted in the article that 'people tend to go only once' - utter rubbish. the mailing list for the venue has some 15,000 members and has a loyal and regular following. Ticket sales of £300k per year
At the public consultancy at the Floral Pavilion, Mr Stennard told the gathering that the events currently on offer at Pacific Road could move to the Floral Pavilion. In many cases this is totally impractical and in many cases impossible. Pacific Road is at its best hosting a packed standing audience of 700. You can't do that at the Floral. Theatre in the round? you can't do that at the Floral. Having a pint while watching an act? You can't do that at the floral. Beer festival, wrestling, model train show, you can't do them at the Floral. Mr Stennard does not seem to know the difference between a theatre performance and a gig.
The politicians are intent on running the venue down so that they can justify washing their hands of it.
Cultural services? Pah.

In many respects Pacific Road has been operating with at least one hand tied behind its back. I have accounts for 07/08 and PR made an income of some £576,000 of this £340,000 was ticket sales. This was achieved whilst housing staff made ‘homeless’ by the re-building of the Floral Pavilion, and with a council imposed advertising budget of just £11,300.
Informed opinion is that Pacific Road can operate on £100k a year, and this is if NO extra measures are taken to improve the way it is managed. If philistine councillors expect art and culture to make profits all the time then we are in for a pretty lean time of it here on the Wirral.

The dismissive way the article mentions the Hamilton Quarter also requires examination, the council would prefer this debacle was quietly forgotten about and the Globe seems to be going along with them rather than investigating why the Hamilton Quarter Project has been allowed to fail so miserably.
This was EEC funding of over £85m, targeted directly at this small area of Birkenhead and intended for the area ‘to become the Wirral's main centre for art and cultural activities.’(WBC press release).
Millions were spent converting PR to its present use and it is the only real asset left from this funding the people of Wirral still have.
‘This grand ex-storage and transit shed has been totally transformed into THE performing arts venue. Indeed, it was so recognised by achieving Mersey Tourism's Performing Arts Venue of the year Award after only being in operation for one season.’ (WBC Website)
The admission that the Hamilton Quarter has been allowed to fail because insufficient funds were held back from the £85m, enough to keep Pacific Road going for 500 years plus, is I would suggest, indicative of the gross mismanagement that has led to the current SAR.

With regards to the comments about Pacific Road
from Alan Stennard and Steve Foulks in the story

Drama group hopes to save Pacific Road

12:02pm Tuesday 13th January 2009
By Carol Emmas »

Whilst I have to agree with Mr. McCann and believe that
in the long term the best hope for Pacific Road is for it to be
run by people who know how .. Why should these unspecified
people expect to benefit from £10m pounds of our funding ?

It isn't unreasonable for the people of Wirral to expect the MBWC
to 'know how' and deliver the services for which we pay .... for once !!

On Pacific Road, Alan Stennard, Director of Regeneration @
Wirral council said:
“What happened with the Hamilton Quarter is we didn’t set aside
money to keep it going and despite continued hard work
it hasn’t been the success originally expected.

Therefore MBWC mismanaged £ 85m of EU funding
and those people responsible , who still work for the MBWC
should be fired and those who have retired should have their
pensions stopped !!

“People tend to go only once, it’s not really taken off and we need
to learn those lessons and not reinforce what is not working,"
we are looking at an alternative use.

If you go to the facebook page and read the comments ..
this is a straightout ... lie !!

There are a whole raft of regular customers , who would go more often
if the box office system worked , the events were properly publicised , and the venue wasn't 'pricing' the local community out , by charging Philharmonic Hall prices for events .

What needs to be done is expressed eloquently by the contributors
to the facebook group ...
http://www.facebook.
com/group.php?gid=40
793707133&ref=mf

“We have not gone out to seek any expressions of interest, but
people with experience of running such venues have approached us.

I bet they have , anyone with an ounce of intelligence can see the potential within the venue for making a profit .... except these idiots , who believe 'regeneration' means .. to do the groundwork's and clearance of land for the MBWC & Peel Holdings "Wirral Waters" development .

“Money however has been set aside for the newly re-furbish
Floral Pavilion in New Brighton, which we will make sure is a success.”

How can it be a success when the management team now in place
at the Floral .. contains all the members of exactly the same team ,
who have proven for over 9 years that they can't make Pacific Road work due to a lack of commitment to the Venue by the MBWC Regeneration Department .

And this is exactly what MBWC said about Pacific Road ,
when they closed the Glenda Jackson Theatre .

The redevelopment of the Floral was a direct result of 40 years
of neglect of this classic building by successive Councils which
left the original structure so unsafe ... that demolition
was the only option open ; So why spent £12m + on developing
a new Venue when , and here I quote Alan Stennard and Jim Lester's comments at the Culture Leisure and Tourism Oversight Committee meeting and again at the 'Special Area Forum' meetings .

"Maybe the council are not the best people to be running Venue's " ??

“We don’t want to disadvantage people, but we want to improve facilities,” added Mr Stennard.

This should read .. we want to absolve ourselves of responsibility
for our gross mismanagement of the Borough's assets .

Leader of the council Steve Foulkes said:
“We will be talking to other bodies and looking at
handing Pacific Road over to another person to run."

When the going gets tough , the tough get going
and the MBWC panic and run !

“It is proven to be unsustainable.”

All that has been proven is that , this inefficient behemoth
the MBWCis incapable of looking after , repairing and maintaining
the borough's aassets and far from the assets being unsustainable
it is the MBWC itself that is unsustainable , when nearly 25% of
the MBWC budget goes on pensions and a further 25% on wages ...
for folks who demonstrably cannot do the job required of them !!



Tim Tapling