History was made last week when Bath & North East Somerset Council returned Midsomer Norton Town Hall and other key assets to the town, which the Town Council has immediately gifted into Charitable Trust to protect them for present and future generations.

The ground-breaking meeting on Monday, 25th February, attended by over 120 local residents, the Mayor of the West of England, Tim Bowles, Cllr Tim Warren, Leader of B&NES Council and community leaders, was the culmination of an eleven-and-a-half year Asset Transfer Project and the largest B&NES Council has been involved with. The package includes freeholds for the Town Hall, Somer Centre, Silver Street Nature Reserve and land at the entrance to the Town Park, as well as a 99-year lease on the Orchard Hall. The open market value of these properties totals £760,000, plus an additional £170,000 to be spent by B&NES on the Town Hall to bring it up to standard – most significantly including the installation of a new lift.

As Paul Myers, Mayor of Midsomer Norton, Cllr Steve Plumley and the Town Clerk, Donna Ford, who have led the project for the Town Council, worked through the complex chain of legal processes to achieve the transfer, a vast amount of hard work has been put in to make it all possible.

The evening opened with a Midsomer Norton Town Council meeting, where it was resolved to formally sign the deal with Cllr Tim Warren, Leader of B&NES, and transfer the assets to the Town Council. Then, Town Councillors resolved to gift the assets, plus the Town Park freehold, to the Midsomer Norton Town Trust. An additional commemorative ‘Declaration of Gift’ statement was then signed by all the Councillors in order to record the reasons behind taking on the assets and gifting them to the ‘people’, and the intention to frame and hang this Declaration in the Town Hall. There then followed a formal meeting of the Town Trust, where the Councillors, in their role as Corporate Trustee, accepted the gift of the assets for and on behalf of the ‘people’.

“After over eleven years of negotiations with B&NES Council to secure the future of the Town Hall and the other properties, this Asset Transfer deal has been well worth waiting for,” said Paul Myers, Mayor of Midsomer Norton, who has been instrumental in working to secure the future of the town’s community assets.

“In the case of the Town Hall, the freehold will be returning to the Town Council after an 85-year absence.

Midsomer Norton Urban District Council originally bought the building from the Beauchamp family in 1903, but then lost direct ownership when it was merged with Radstock in March 1933. The Town Hall was later given by Norton Radstock Town Council to Wansdyke District Council, who in turn, transferred it to B&NES Council when it was abolished.

“The transfer will ensure that in future, our town’s key community assets are owned, managed and controlled ‘for the people and by the people’, in line with the objective we set out when the Town Council was first created in 2011.”

There then followed the unveiling of a commemorative brass plaque, recognising the work of the Sarah Ann Trust in managing the Town Hall for 36 years from 1983 to 2019, and without whose efforts the building could very easily have been lost to the community. The Mayor presented medals to Doug Benson – Trustee & Chair, Shirley Steel – Trustee, Patricia Flagg – Treasurer, Matthew Livsey and himself (the Mayor has served as Secretary for the last twelve years), as well as previous Trustees, Julie Moorshead, Terry Reakes and David Chalk. Medals of recognition were also presented to those who had run the Orchard Hall, including Ann and Colin Robbins, Gillian Yates and Megan Bevan.

The evening was rounded off with a series of speeches from the floor of the meeting, all thanking the Town Council and in particular, the Mayor, Paul Myers, Cllr Steve Plumley and Town Clerk, Donna Ford, as well as the B&NES Administration and officers for their tenacity and hard work in seeing this huge project through to its conclusion.