Charlotte Hart from the Great Barr Observer has brought my attention to the appeal to raise £15K to keep the Community centre open.
The link is Go FUND ME
That is a lot of money to raise for a local community and I wish them the best of luck. However even now it is still not clear what has lead to this serious problem. I do wish whether anonmously or in public someone with knowledge of the situation would inform us.
If it is a funding problem from the council this can be dealt with using normal routes.
If not then what has suddenly caused this ?
News and Views about Pheasey Park Farm 
I write as a one time head of external funding for Walsall Council. My post was deleted in 2005 and that of my colleague was deleted when he retired in 2010/11. If either post had remained this situation could have been avoided.
For example, I would not have suggested Go Fund Me. This is a crowd funding website with no facility for gift aid. A just giving site would allow such claims and thus reduce the sum needed to a potential £12,000 + gift aid claim. However, at 10.00 this morning localgiving.com have a donate and double event where a donation of £10.00 is doubled. This can also be gift aided so the sum needed reduces to £6,000 in donations of £10.00. It is something of which I do quite a lot – my present job involves revenue stream development and capital funding for Churches in Somerset – a mere £24m p.a.
There is a major problem with this charity. Looking at the entry on the charity commission web-site (see here http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=522761&SubsidiaryNumber=0 ) you can see what it is. Until this is fixed it is unlikely that any grant making bodies will provide serious money. Can I suggest that local people offer to help to fix this problem in order to access serious money? Maybe Walsall Voluntary Action can help. It should be possible to get a grant of £10,000 in nine weeks once this matter is sorted.
yep just checked it Andrew and can clearly see they are not in business terms a ‘going concern’. As I know run my own business the consequences of not filing your docs is serious.
thanks for the update and advice and will be fascinated to see the further developments.
This problem had not been caused by the Council and it is not a Council building although the freehold of the land belongs to the council on a very long lease.
Walsall VA are involved.
Obviously you two know each other I would guess !!
As I have said in pieces I did not believe this was down to any council cuts as during the budget process never saw any cuts to the centre !
However I would ask Adrian that someone tells the community what has gone wrong. Is it an historic problem that was never addressed, something short term that has happened ?
Not seen Cllr Andrew for 10 years. I now live and work in somerset but take an interest in Walsall matters as (a) my parents still live there and (b) we bought a house in willenhall just after the banking crash in 2008. The job move here meant that we needed to sell it. House prices in willenhall are lower than in 2008 (or, indeed 2010) and I would love to see evidence of local and national government policies working in the West Midlands. We may be able to unlock our capital! Where we love now there are more jobs than people – local government is the same political colour than Walsall. Hopefully the jaguar plant at I-54 will bleed wealth to Walsall. It is sad that Primark and retail is seemingly seen as the answer.
How can Walsall council own the freehold on a long lease? Bit of an oxymoron!