ABSTRACT
In spite of the progress which had been made the saga of the new premises was far from over. The shop had already been surveyed and some major building work identified, but before the repairs could start another hurdle was discovered. As the shop had been a second-hand business a request for change of use would have to be made to the council in order to use it for anything else. This appeared to be far from a formality and the available information indicated that once again councillors would have to be persuaded. A collective meeting discussed whether it was possible just to move in and hope for the best, but decided that too much attention was already directed to the Centre and that there was no option in this case but to play it straight. Accordingly Jo went to see someone hi the planning department and met with an unexpected response:
She said, ‘No, don’t apply for change of use, you’ll not get it. You’ll waste £40 on the application and you won’t get it.’ The collective had decided we should just go ahead and apply for change of use, we didn’t realise it would be £40. So I go on this collective decision and there was this woman saying you don’t stand a chance. So we applied and we got it and if we’d obeyed everyone’s advice we wouldn’t have got it.
