COUNCILLORS have again put off making a decision on whether to support the Rockwell Green War Memorial Institute Club because they are not sure whether it would be a wise use of taxpayers’ money.

Members of Wellington Town Council’s finance committee met last week – via Zoom video conferencing technology – to discuss again the club’s grant application for £5,000 to help towards a kitchen refurbishment.

They had put off making a decision at their January meeting in the hope of obtaining more information about the club, its membership and long-term future.

Deputy Mayor Cllr Mark Lithgow was disappointed to hear that the club’s membership had gone down over the years from just over 140 to 108 in 2019.

“In my view I can’t see how 108 members is sustainable for a club to survive,” he said. “It’s going the same way as hundreds of other clubs like this have gone over the years.

“I can’t really support giving them money.”

Cllr John Thorne had heard through the grapevine that the application was going to be withdrawn by the club.

“We really do need someone from the club to come and speak to us and have a proper dialogue with us,” he said. “It needs to refurbish the kitchen in order to raise the club’s fortunes – it’s a chicken and egg situation.

“But we need to know more from them – we need to hear direct from the horse’s mouth.

“We have to look at this carefully because it is council taxpayers’ money.”

Cllr Andy Govier added: “This is a tricky one and I would go along with a deferral – we have to be careful what we are giving money for.”

But Cllr Mike McGuffie spoke in support of the application. “I would be in favour of giving the money,” he said. “It’s a 100-year-old institution and it would be a shame to see it go down.”

He also added that he understood that if the club did close, money left in the coffers would be distributed among a number of local community organisations.

Councillors were told that the club had a long list of maintenance jobs that needed to be carried out to help bring it up to modern-day standards.

Cllr Nancy Powell-Brace said: “They can’t expand without investment and yet they can’t invest without the membership.

“It’s a shabby place at the moment and they can’t advertise for new members because you can only get there by walking, there’s no parking.”

Councillors were told that the club had been successful in obtaining a grant of £3,000 from Somerset West and Taunton Council and so asked whether it now needed £2,000 from the town council?

The decision to defer the application was later ratified by the full council.