A new owner of Burnham-On-Sea’s Princess Hall will not be appointed until next spring at the earliest.
Sedgemooor District Council told Burnham-On-Sea.com this week that it will formally commence the tendering process next month.
However, the timetable for appointing the new owner will not be fully completed until March next year.
Nicola Slawski, Group Manager of Regeneration at Sedgemoor District Council, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The council is currently working on an ‘OJEC’ notice, which is scheduled to be issued in October. This will begin the whole legal process of finding a new owner.”
“By the end of the year we hope to finish the contractual process and we should be in a position to select someone to take over The Princess by the end of March 2010.”
OJEC, the ‘Official Journal of the European Community’, is the publication in which all contracts from the public sector that are valued above a certain financial threshold must be published.
Burnham-On-Sea.com first reported earlier this year that several groups were considering making bids to take over The Princess in order to turn it into an entertainment complex. However, two of the groups merged and a third group is understood to be considering its options.
Sedgemoor District Council have been responsible for the Princess since a local Government re-organisation in 1974. The Princess was subject to a major refurbishment (£700,000 plus) in the mid 1990s, but has been a loss-making facility in recent years, sparking fears that it may close. The district council is seeking a new owner to take it over and as a community facility.
