CONTESSA, the hotel group involved in the controversial £25 million proposal to redevelop Warrington’s historic Walton Hall as a hotel and conference complex, has pulled out of the deal.
The shock news was announced at the start of a special meeting of Warrington Borough Council’s environment overview and scrutiny committee to consider a “call in” by Labour councillors opposed to the scheme.
In a statement, Andy Farrall, the council’s executive director of environment and regeneration said: “The council has received confirmation from Contessa that they have withdrawn their interest in the project to regenerate the Walton 
Hall Estate.
“Naturally we are disappointed with this decision, however we remain committed to regenerating and improving the borough for all of our residents and will continue to look for new opportunities for the estate, while focusing our attentions on the town centre and other key projects such as Orford Park and the related neighbourhood hubs.”
Labour councillors welcomed the announcement.
Coun Peter Carey said: “This is wonderful news.”
He said the whole concept of the hotel scheme was flawed and the costs had been exaggerated.
Alleged losses of £650,000 a year on Walton Hall could have been several hundred thousand less if the estate had been properly managed.
He criticised the proposed deal with Contessa which, he claimed, could have left the council having to find up to £20 million if the scheme had gone “belly up.”
Representatives of the Save Walton Hall and Gardens campaign group and the Friends of the Walton Estate complained bitterly at the lack of proper consultation carried out by the council.
Malcolm Eldridge, of the Save Walton Hall campaign said despite Contessa’s withdrawal there was still a genuine need to examine the whole process which, he said, had been “high handed” and had left councillors with their reputations at stake.
Executive board members Coun Bob Barr (pictured) and Coun Alan Litton accepted from the outset that the issue should be taken back to the executive.
Coun Barr said: “There isn’t anyone in this room who doesn’t want to save Walton Hall and Gardens.”
He accused the previous Labour administration of allowing the buildings to fall into a state of disrepair over many years.
The council was already looking at ways of broadening and widening the consultation and had announced plans to set up an advisory group, with representatives of a wide range of groups as members, to plan the way forward.
Coun Litton said meetings had been arranged with the campaign groups but these had had to be cancelled because of the “call in.”
It was agreed the executive board would take the matter back to start with a blank sheet of paper and go out to full consultation on new proposals.
But Coun Barr stated: “We can’t rule out the possibility that a hotel might still be part of the proposals.”
Hotel group pulls out of Walton deal
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
8 Comments
Why cancel the meetings with the campaign groups? It would be an ideal opportunity to discuss the way forward for the future?
At least contessa had the decency to realise that public opinion is not to be ignored and for that they have earned my respect unlike cllr Marks and his cronies. as a former Card Carrying Lib Dem supporter I now see at least the local representation for what they are. I hope the greater party take heed at what their local representatives have done for their reputation. they are an embarrasment to common sense and I will not only have withdrawn my support but will not rest until they resign in shame.
As I understand it, the meetings HAD to be cancelled because of the call in. It is part of the regulations. However, now that the call-in has been dealt with, there is nothing to stop meetings being rearranged and I understand they will be, as part of the consultation process
Richiepooh, there is no shame in them!!! No shame, no appologies merely arrogant attempts to justify their actions!
Despite the fact that their despicable tactics have been revealed for all the town to see they remain resistant to public opinion. It appears they still have no real intention of conducting a full and fair public consultation. Cllr Barr states, “The council was already looking at ways of broadening and widening the consultation and had announced plans to set up an advisory group, with representatives of a wide range of groups as members, to plan the way forward”. Due to the fact that the groups to form the ‘advisory group’ are chosen by the council the results of these type of focus group consultations merely seem to affirm the council’s intentions!!!
Where is there any indication that the Exec have any real intention of scrapping their plans and listening to the public? Bob Barrs parting shot was;-
“We can’t rule out the possibility that a hotel might still be part of the proposals.”
That says it all!
This is what Stockport have done for a similar project, and their offer to help us. Any chance Warrington might do the same ??????
The Council has so far produced a draft Conservation Management Plan for the Hall and Park. This examines current condition, provides a detailed historical understanding of the site and assesses significance. At the moment this document has only made suggestions as to what pieces of work may be undertaken at the Park and Hall and it is these ideas that have been represented at the public exhibitions. We had a launch of the exhibition materials at the Easter Festival that is held at the Park and organised by the Friends Group. I manned the stand for the Easter Sunday explaining the ideas to members of the public. We had about 1000 people through the doors on this one day. These exhibition materials were then circulated to five venues over approx 2 months where the general public could leave comments. We also have made presentations to various local interest groups explaining the findings. We have set up a project webpage (which you have found), and produced a project newsletter that conveys information from the plan and is distributed to residents and throughout the local area, including local businesses, shops, local library etc. We distribute the newsletter electronically to all councilors and senior members of the council. We have also undertaken a significant piece on consultation work at the Hall/ Park over the Easter weekend whereby users of the site were interviewed briefly and asked a series of questions about how long they were planning to stay, where they had traveled from etc. This information is being used to understand in greater detail what motivates current users of the site and those people that don’t use the Park or visit the Hall. Finally we have undertaken other pieces of consultation work with members of the public during 2008/2009 by using special ‘standpoint machines’ which were placed at the Hall and in the Park tea rooms for 2 months – these are like electronic keyboards where you tap in and answer a series of multiple choice questions about the Park and Hall – we gathered about 800 answers during that early round of consultation and have been able to add this information to the later rounds of consultation.
As this is only the initial consultation exercise, we hope to build on this when we actually decide what it is we want to do at the Park and Hall, and obviously we will need to ask the public what they think.
“I hope that this helps. If you need to have a chat about any of these methods or need more details then don’t hesitate to contact me where I’d be more than happy go through these.”
Sha, aren’t these “arrogant people” our elected representatives and therefore allowed to take actions on our behalf. Isn’t it similar arrogance that you think you know best? Public opinion says that we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan but democracy doesn’t work that way. People are elected to make decisions.
The consultation process Stockport are carrying out for their Hall and Park shows that some councils really do understand what a ‘full and open public consultation’ should be!!!
People who are elected are accountable to the public who elected them and should be making decisions in the best interests of the public who elected them. They should be open and honest about the decisions they are considering and take full account of public opinion. Telling the public they “have not and will not make any decions about Walton Hall and Gardens before a full and open public consultation had taken place” and then going behind closed doors and doing the exact opposite to what they had promised was not ‘open and honest’. Then when called in to scrutiny for their actions, they angrily defended them with a ‘we know best attitude’ Eagle, that WAS arrogant’.