Ryde Town Council has sold Vectis Hall for just £30,150 at auction – £94,850 less than the £125,000 it paid for the historic building 6 years ago.
The former free school and community centre on Melville Street went under the hammer earlier this week with a nil reserve, attracting an extraordinary 297 bids before eventually selling for a measly £30,150.
The sale brings an end to Ryde Town Council’s ownership of the Grade II listed building following years of spending public money on the property.
Island Echo revealed in May that, on top of the £125,000 purchase price in 2020, council spending records showed at least a further £52,000 had been spent on Vectis Hall since April 2023.
That included more than £30,000 associated with scaffolding and clearance, as well as expenditure on asbestos removal, structural assessments, planning consultancy and Public Works Loan Board repayments.
At the time, Island Echo calculated that public expenditure associated with Vectis Hall could be approaching £200,000 when the purchase, works and borrowing costs were considered.
Against that backdrop, the £30,150 achieved at auction represents a substantial financial loss for the town council – and ultimately the Council Tax payers of Ryde.
Ryde Town Council bought Vectis Hall with ambitions of securing grant funding and regenerating the building for community use. However, those plans failed to materialise and the condition of the property continued to deteriorate.
Planning documents previously revealed that part of the building had collapsed internally, with engineers identifying an ‘imminent’ collapse risk. Listed building consent was subsequently granted for the demolition of an unstable wall.
When the decision to sell was defended earlier this year, Ryde Town Council pointed to a lack of large-scale grant funding following the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing cost of maintaining the site.
Vectis Hall was initially due to be auctioned in June, but the freehold sale was postponed before it returned to the auction catalogue this month with no reserve price.
