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.
They just don’t give a flying one do they? Some other poor sods money squandered yet again.
And they will have the cheek to raise council tax next year
That is what happens when clueless numpties
are running the show.
You failed to mention that the grants for refurbishments were curtailed by the then government of Conservatives due to the financial impact of Covid, and also that the original purchase was under Dave Stewart, also Conservative. Myopia rules yet again.
The money spent subsequently to shore up the building once it was realised grant funds would not be forthcoming was a statutory duty on the grounds of public safety.
In effect then, we are now £30k better off than we would have been had it been further left to fall down, and that’s not including the yearly costs of paying for the scaffolding, insurances and then the dismantling and reclamation of the site.
Complete nonsense.
Dave Stewart had nothing to do with the purchase, as he was never a member of Ryde Town Council. The Councillor you should blame is Phil Jordan, as he was the driving force behind this.
They also bought the scaffolding outright, which I believe was in the region of £30k. It wasn’t done for public safety, but the due to the threat of enforcement action from the Isle of Wight Council as it is a listed building. It is disgraceful that it took them 40 years to remember that.
Meanwhile the costs of the NatWest building and refurbishment near £1 million. And that doesn’t include the cost of opening the existing toilet block inside, which was touted as one of the main reasons for that building being purchased in the first place.
I believe they intend to apply for a grant to the Ryde Neighbourhood Board to do those works, which no doubt with be another six figure amount.
Unusual for “Sunshine” to be wrong…oh wait!
What a “moderate” socialist knows about finance can be found on the head of match.
As leader of the council he was often indirectly responsible in acting as an external catalyst due to his administration. See also Ryde Arena, the harbour, the regeneration of the seafront and often forced RTC to make decisions they may not have otherwise. It certainly proved to be a folly, but the previous administration was busy promising everyone jam tomorrow.
I am no fan of Stewart or his administration, but that is one weak argument.
Nobody forced RTC to do anything and Vectis Hall in particular being previously privately owned and nowhere near the seafront has nothing whatsoever to do with any Conservative policies.
And funny you should mention the ‘harbour’ or Ryde Marina as it was rebranded.
That is another Jordan-led venture, which has lost and will continue to lose a fortune. And what happened to the fraud investigation, where a staff member stole tens of thousands of pounds? Hasn’t that been a year now?
You will note that Jordan said much when he was taking these things on, but is now completely mute. He is clearly not capable of taking responsibility yet the rest of them meekly continue to re-elect him as the chair of Finance. Now in his eighth year. What a complete disaster he is.
To try and lay this at the feet of any political group is pure nonsense of the highest order. The vast majority of RTC members, like Jordan are independents.
Maybe you too then would like to know or look into how the building was a community asset until 2009 when it then ‘passed’ into the hands of faceless, nameless ‘absent owners’, who SOLD it to them and why the records are not in the public domain?
I may have got my Daves mixed up….apologies if so…still digging.
Oh no, I’m not casting aspersions at RTC, far from it. Or Jordan. I think they all have community interests at heart. I’m not so sure about the original sale though.
If an investigation is under way, being mute is anyone’s best interest.
Did you mean the drink-driving force behind this..?
Only you could turn a hundred thousand pound loss into a thirty thousand pound profit whilst making a political statement, this is why these small hobby councils should never have a budget, they waste it , they squander it and in several cases cannot or will not account for where it has gone, this applies to all hobby councils of whatever persuasion.
Amen to that!
Another case of a council wasting other people’s money without any consequences. Then of course raising council tax in order to continue the same deplorable policy. People should be accountable and sacked without any payoff.
Hoping the new owner doesn’t get planning and de listing for change of use. The council should have done that
Thats not very fair on the new owner thou is it.
Council Tax should be voluntary and not compulsary.
They don’t seem to spend it on the services it’s supposed to be collected for. Exactly the same with Ryde Town Hall. Sold it cheap, bought it back more expensive. Do any of our leaders have a degree in Business Management?, probably not.
This building when they purchased it, might as well bought a broken ferrari. It’d be worth more!!!!
Council tax is a complete con, what do we get for
our money?
Majority of it goes to the Councils lucrative pension pot.
Little wonder Ryde council tax precept is so high. They consistently waste huge sums of taxpayers money, on there vanity projects.
A better strategy would be too sack the lot.
Expect RTC next bottomless pit, will be there new ivory tower offices.
What nobody’s mentioning is what it would have cost to keep the place – insurance, health ‘n safety considerations, further marketing costs, ongoing maintenance. That would make a big hole in anybody’s money.
Insurance for 25/26 was £958. What health and safety considerations? The work has been done, it is entirely entombed so ongoing costs minimal. What on earth has marketing got to do with anything?
If you were trying to justify the huge losses as some some of victory, then you are making as much sense as ‘Sunshine’. i.e None.
PJ the best thing about posting on this site is living rent free in the heads of the loony-lefties.
Mind you, that is no mean achievement given the size of the relevant “brain” (about the size of a frozen pea) in those heads.
Keep it up!
Don’t be ridiculous, of course it’s not a victory, but selling at a loss is not the same as a total loss, is it? We don’t yet know how much it was SOLD to the absent owners in the first place, given that it was a community asset, or WHO SOLD IT.
Here..
The specific private individual or entity who sold Vectis Hall on the Isle of Wight in 2009 is not publicly documented in local history or news records.
Public archives specify that around 2009, the historic Grade II listed building officially passed out of community use, was sold into private hands, and subsequently fell victim to decades of neglect by “absent private owners”. It remained in this neglected state until Ryde Town Council stepped in to purchase the hall back for £125,000 in 2020 to rescue it from further dilapidation.
It was said we could get grants to do that. Grants didn’t happen.
And it doesn’t smell fishy enough for you to ask which leaders of the time might have known? Jordan may not be anyone’s cup of tea, but 2009 pre-dates him, sorry.
And our Council tax will now go up again to cover the costs that RTC has spent on this without Public Consultaion
Firstly I agree with all the comments slagging off councils and council tax. A nod to EiE with his relevent and to the point comments. I mention him especially as we do differ on our opinions. And once he accepts my opinions as correct 😉 …..
Then I must offer my sympathies to RTC, they must be devastated about this. The mere thought that they had a ‘bit of a booboo’ must mortify their very altruistic souls. I wonder if in the quiet hours, over the Ryde area, listen careful, is that distant sobbing?
Hopefully the buyer can put lots of flats on there, claw some money back as the fee for the most useless, over priced, worse value for money service since time began pile of shit.
Or as some call it, council tax
The purchaser has already sold it on for a healthy profit.
It seems that RTC have been pissing away more of other peoples’ money.
Is this even a surprise any more?