Town & community councils play a key role in Bridgend Council’s Community Asset Transfer policy and they’re due to be updated on progress later today (pdf).
In short, Community Asset Transfer (CAT) is the transfer of responsibility for maintenance and upkeep of community facilities to sports clubs, voluntary organisations and town & community councils.
To date, the CAT process in Bridgend has been relatively slow and beset by problems, but the report suggests that the pace is beginning to pick up.
There has been something of a “carrot and stick” approach by BCBC – the carrot is the various grant schemes for improvements and surveys to bring facilities up to an adoptable standard; the stick is changes to facilities/hire fees (I’m not sure if these have been brought in or not, but they were suspended for the 2020-21 season).
As of January 2022, only 8 CAT projects at 7 locations have been completed.
10 further agreements with sports clubs are due to be finalised in the coming months, while 8 CATs for playing fields are being discussed with seven town and community councils.
The full list of facilities identified as being suitable for community asset transfer, and their current stage in the process to date, is available here (pdf).
There has been a concerted effort to get more sports clubs involved in the CAT process. 10 of the county’s 12 bowls clubs have agreed to take over day-to-day maintenance while long-term leases were being agreed upon, while 6 other sports clubs (rugby and football) have agreed to similar arrangements.
A strategic review of the three major multi-use parks in the county is ongoing.
- Newbridge Fields, Bridgend – Several options are on the table including: greater involvement from Bridgend Town Council, Halo and sports clubs via a board/user group; CAT of individual pavilions and pitches; excluding Newbridge Fields from the CAT process and coming up with a new means of managing the fields; developing higher quality facilities (3G/4G pitch, training facilities new changing rooms) for use by local schools. Nothing’s been finalised yet.
- Maesteg Welfare Park – The management of the park should fully involve Maesteg Town Council and Friends of Maesteg Welfare Park, probably via a board/user group. Future sports uses at the park and upgrades to existing facilities should be properly costed.
- Aberfields/The Planka, Nantymoel – Ogmore Valley Community Council has expressed an interest in CAT and the provision of an all-weather sports pitch. The community council has established a working group to take this forward.
