I WRITE in response to Mr Mulholland’s letter regarding the Civic Centre in these pages last week. I want to put on record how angry I am with yet another opportunistic intervention by Mr Mulholland on this important issue.

He has either completely failed to understand the difficult financial issues that are involved – and is therefore incompetent – or he has deliberately distorted them for cheap political gain.

The Civic Centre costs almost £200,000 a year to maintain – never mind the millions of pounds needed to refurbish and repair the building before it can be opened. Otley Town Council cannot simply ‘move back in’ as Mr Mulholland keeps claiming. Detailed financial projections done in the past, and more recently, have shown that there must be a new solution if we are to save the building.

Mr Mulholland claimed in his letter last week that the Lib Dems had ‘agreed a deal’ in 2009 with Leeds City Council and that the refurbishment of the Civic Centre ‘was agreed and planned’. This is simply not true.

In 2010, the Lib Dem business case for the Civic Centre – which had been put together at some expense by a paid consultant – was rejected by Leeds City Council.

Why? Because the numbers demonstrated that the Civic Centre was not financially viable if occupied by Otley Town Council. This is one of the reasons why the building has gradually deteriorated over the decades – because the building was unaffordable and not properly maintained.

It is this position that Labour inherited when we took control of Otley Town Council in 2011. After two years of discussions and extensive research, we published our feasibility study for the Civic Centre last year.

We laid out a bold plan for the building to become an entertainment venue run by a charitable trust, involving everything from a cinema to music and theatre performances.

So we were delighted when, several months following the publication of our study, a local entrepreneur, Jamie Hudson, stepped forward to build on our vision which he described as ‘very credible’ and ‘a basis to develop our own plans’.

We fully support these plans and are grateful for the excellent work Mr Hudson and his team are doing.

It is important to understand that these plans do not involve Otley Town Council residing in the Civic Centre. The building is instead to be a dedicated entertainment venue.

Mr Mulholland is therefore running the risk of derailing these plans with his continued insistence that the town council should simply ‘move back in’.

It is time for Mr Mulholland to stop playing politics with the future of this important building.

Councillor Carl Morris (Lab, Manor)