Late on Friday evening East Cambs District Council published a press release which began “An outline business plan to transform a currently unused brownfield site in Mepal into a cutting edge, ecological crematorium…”. This was the first public confirmation of leaked reports earlier in the week of secret plans agreed behind closed doors to abandon the reopening of Mepal Outdoor Centre as a community leisure and recreation facility and to instead build a money-making crematorium.

Until Friday evening district councillors were forbidden from discussing any of aspect of the plans in public. Opposition councillors including myself and Lorna Dupré were only made aware of the plans for the first time six days earlier. On the 14 July we were informed that there would be a special full council meeting on Friday 31 July to discuss “an exempt asset management matter in the Parish of Mepal.”

It wasn’t until we received the meeting papers on Saturday 25 July that we became aware that the cryptically named “asset management matter’ was the much loved Mepal Outdoor Centre, a council owned leisure and recreation facility that had fallen into disuse and decay over the past three years. It suffered multiple instances of vandalism over that period and a devastating arson attack just a few weeks ago. The entire set of meeting papers was printed on special blue paper which meant that none of the contents could be shared or discussed in public.

We repeatedly asked the district council to allow the publishing of the outline of the proposals to be debated, keeping only sensitive financial information secret but this was refused. On Tuesday evening Lorna and I issued a statement protesting the unnecessary secrecy. Later than evening the Ely Standard broke an exclusive story revealing the district council was planning to turn Mepal Outdoor Centre into a crematorium – https://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/disused-cambs-leisure-centre-may-become-crematorium-1-6767323

As district councillors for parish of Mepal, the part of East Cambridgeshire where the Mepal Outdoor Centre is based, Lorna and I could neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of the story. We were forbidden from discussing it.

Fast forward to 6pm on Friday 31 July and the special full council meeting. All councillors had to vote to exclude the press and public from the meeting before debating behind closed doors. I proposed that instead the council meeting should be adjourned to re-organise the meeting papers so that we could discuss the key principles and options for the Outdoor Centre in a public meeting, leaving a short closed session at the end of the meeting to debate sensitive financial data.

You can view part of that council meeting debate on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBb-IwbTnE&feature=youtu.be&t=714

I made clear in my comments that I thought it was wrong, especially given the public interest, to have the entire debate behind closed doors. Watch the video through to the end of my comments and you will hear the arrogant response from the Tory Leader of the Council. She dismissed any suggestion to have the debate in public and demanded that the council curtail the debate and go to the vote. You don’t need to watch the recording to the end, the Tory councillors voted en bloc to throw out any plan to allow just part of the debate in public. They voted through the exclusion of both the press and the public and no one was able to witness this important debate.

Once the plans had been railroaded through late on Friday evening the council’s PR consultants published details of the plan to abandon the re-opening of the Outdoor Centre and to instead construct a crematorium. This was the first official communication to the public of the council’s intention. Only made after the council had voted through the plans.

In another post later this week I’ll explain why, even if you were looking to build a crematorium in East Cambridgeshire, you wouldn’t build it at Mepal Outdoor Centre.

In the meantime I’m interested to know what you think the future should be for the Outdoor Centre. If you have thoughts or ideas get in touch https://markinskip.mycouncillor.org.uk/getting-in-touch.

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