The Gornal Pensioners Club say they own the land and the building of there club and it costs the council nothing to run it. The Council seem to think it belongs to them, and without informing the trustees, forced entry to the building and there storage cupboards ripping down curtain poles and loading furniture onto a truck. It all started with the council saying the building wasn't for for use.
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00:00So Pam, how you doing? I'm good, thank you. Cool, and we're here at Upper Gornall? Upper Gornall
00:06Pensioners' Club. Cool, in what looks like a nice building. According to the council it's
00:13about to tumble down upon you though isn't it, and they want it knocked down. Fill us in,
00:17what's been going on Pam? That's what they've been saying to us, that it's ready to tumble down.
00:22It's been standing since 1958, and they just generally want the haul from us,
00:31and they want the land from us. So they mentioned there was some issue about pipework,
00:35but you were saying that's been fixed? That's been repaired, but they reckon that the actual
00:40damage to the pipework had got rid of some of the footings underneath the building.
00:47And you guys here, you dispute that. There's a crack in the building that was mentioned,
00:52but you said that crack's been here 20 years? It's been 20 years, it's been monitored for the
00:56last four years, and it hasn't moved. So what's behind this then? So your
01:03councillor basically, from what I can gather, are they saying this is their land and they want it,
01:08but you're saying no it's not? They're saying it's their land, their building, and they want it,
01:14and we're disputing the fact that the Upper Gornell Pensioners own the land and the building.
01:23So you're disputing, if I'm the councillor and I'm saying well this is my land, I own this,
01:28what's your dispute then? What are you saying? I'm wrong? Well you're definitely wrong, because
01:33we've got proof of the build. It was built in stages from the pensioners raising money.
01:39The land was gifted by the Westfield Church to the Upper Gornell Pensioners in 1952,
01:46and that's in the archives of the Westfield Church. Yeah, so there's all documents to
01:53show that then. So have you put that to them, and what have they said? Well we put that to them last
02:01Thursday, and these questions were given to them the week before, and they just never answered any
02:08of the questions that we sent to them. The lady in question kept on saying that we apologised,
02:15but she never apologised. She never actually said I'm sorry. Yeah, so what goes on here then? What
02:24goes on here at the club? Obviously there's a few here today, so go on. Well there's three clubs,
02:28there's the Monday Dropping Centre, there's the Tuesday Club and the Wednesday Club,
02:33and I actually run the Wednesday Club, and we are the charity. Yeah. We also hire the all out to
02:41the government, the council, tenants association, anybody that wants to hire a hall, we hire it out.
02:50We have the upkeep of the hall. We pay the gas, the electric, water, all the utilities,
02:56and we keep the hall going. Yeah. We take the pensioners out on trips. Yeah. Out for meals,
03:04we meet every Wednesday, we play bingo, we have a chat, tea, coffee. Yeah, yeah. So if this
03:13was to go, have they said well we want to knock this down and we'll give you another building
03:18somewhere else, or what have they said? We've searched for a building ourselves. Yeah. And we can't find
03:23anything else. That's suitable. Yeah. Anybody want to say anything about what it means to have
03:29this centre to, you know, to come to and meet people and socialise? Come on now, don't be shy.
03:39Anyone? It's a lifeline for someone that lives with anybody. It's a lifeline. Yeah.
03:47So it's that kind of connection, it's that whole social thing and that. Yeah.
03:53Go on madam, what about you? Let's come and pick on you. Just like everybody else is saying.
03:58Yeah. We meet up, have a chat. Yeah. Cup of tea, whatever. So it really would. And when you live
04:04on your own, it takes, it motivates you to get out. Yeah. And you'd all echo that then folks,
04:10so you'd feel kind of lost without it. We're nearly all widows anyway. Exactly. So it's socialising.
04:17Yeah. The friendships that you make. Yeah. Well that's it. How many people? 120 in the three
04:23clubs. Yeah. So that's 120 lives kind of really been changed really by it. Some of them were in
04:30the nineties. Yeah. Yeah. I am. Yeah. So what stage are you at now then Pam? Is it a case of
04:39kind of... But it's a stalemate at the minute because the council haven't got back to us.
04:44We've still got all this information and we're trying to find out more information about it.
04:50Yeah. But they've just got to get back to us with some answers.
04:56Adam, just fill us in on who you are and what you're doing here.
05:00So my name's Adam Aston. I'm one of the councillors that represents Upper Gornwall
05:03and Woodset on Dudley Council and Upper Gornwall Pensions Club is within my patch. Yeah. I've been
05:10incredibly shocked, saddened and concerned about the way this whole issue has been dealt with by
05:17the council, by council officers to force entry into the club and effectively load the contents
05:26into a van without any consultation with the committee, with the members. I think it was an
05:32appalling thing to do and as others have said, isolation is a real issue for older people within
05:42our community and this place has really has been a lifeline for older members of the community for
05:47the last 70 years. I'm fully in support of the campaign to effectively save this building and
05:56ask the council quite how we've got to this stage. Yeah. I mean, what's going on here? You know,
06:03they seem to be coming in and saying, well this is our building, this is our land, but it would
06:06appear that they're just very wrong on that. As far as I'm aware, there's always been a question
06:11mark over the ownership of both the building and the land. I've been a councillor here for 14 years
06:18and many years ago the council said to me that they categorically did not own this building.
06:25That seems to have changed, but no one can explain what led to that change and I think
06:33that's one of the important things we need to determine. Yeah, and I mean, you know, this
06:38building's already here, it's already in use, it's already got its membership. You know, other places
06:43to be crying out for a service like this that looks after 120 senior people. Is that the way
06:50we should say that? I don't want to put it without getting lynched. You know, but yet here we are
06:55again and it seems like they will kind of just want to knock that down and, you know, without
07:01nothing to replace it. And particularly at the moment with, you know, cost of living and, as I
07:06say, isolation being such a huge issue as we move out of Covid, we realise how important it is
07:13to get together. This building is the perfect size, it's the perfect location, it's on a bus route,
07:19everything about it works and quite how the council can come up with a figure of Ā£100,000
07:27to carry out repairs for a building that is essentially the size of a big bungalow is
07:35off the scale. Well, we kind of, we come across these issues, don't we, because people might
07:40think, well, hang on, I can get the, you know, Joe Bloggs down the road to do that job for a fraction
07:45of the price. But am I right in thinking the way it works with council, they have appointed contractors.
07:50So even if you say, well, I've got a qualified person who can do the job here and he's going to
07:54do it for a quarter of the price, the council will most likely say, well, he's not on our list, so we
07:59won't be. That's very often the case. I think that figure of Ā£100,000 has been determined by
08:06an inspection carried out by Dudley Council itself. I think it would be interesting to have
08:12an independent assessment of the work that needs to be done and how much it would be likely to
08:19cost. I'm not an expert in these things, but Ā£100,000 for a building this size, it seems
08:25absolutely ridiculous. So Pam, just fill us in on what happened exactly, in terms of them
08:31forcing entry and coming and taking, I mean, you were saying normally there's curtains and
08:35everything on these walls. It looks a lot more snug and homely than this. So they said to you,
08:42the building's not safe, you need to get out ASAP. So you said... On the 15th of May we were told this,
08:48so we said, okay, we'll vacate it temporarily. And then they wanted a meeting with us all,
08:54with the council, to move forward. A meeting was arranged for the 20th of June.
09:01And we submitted all the questions that we thought we needed answers for. On the 7th of June,
09:12we had a statement saying, yeah, it's all going ahead for the meeting for the 20th. On the 8th
09:19of June, I had a phone call saying that somebody had broke into the building and when we came down
09:26there was workmen here and they'd stripped it. So they'd crowbarred the door open.
09:31Yeah. They crowbarred all the curtains off the wall, pulled the curtains down. Yeah. And they said
09:37that they needed to make it secure. Well, they've made it more insecure because the curtains were
09:43hiding what was inside the building, now it's all open. So they'd started taking all the stuff out,
09:49the tables, the chairs and everything. The tables and chairs was on the lower down. They crowbarred all private
09:54cupboards open where we keep sugar, tea and all the utensils that we use. Yeah. They crowbarred all
10:03those open. And this was, they said, on the orders of the council? Orders of the council. Yeah.
10:11I parked my car in front of the wagon so it couldn't move. Yeah. And then it was a stalemate.
10:18I found the police and the next thing I knew somebody had found the council and they'd reversed
10:26the orders. They told everybody to bring it back in. What did the police say incidentally when you
10:31found them? It was a civil matter. Right, okay. I'm a bit speechless really. I don't know if I've ever been
10:38speechless on one of these videos. Just to make the point, this building, the running costs of it
10:46and what you do here, changing the lives of 120 senior people, it costs the council nothing
10:52doesn't it? Not at all. We pay. We are the Wednesday group. We are the charity. We raise the money to
11:00keep this all going. We pay all the bills, the amenities for the bills. The council do check
11:06the water to make sure that we've got no problems with water. Yeah. But we've only got cold water
11:13anyway. We've got no hot water. Yeah. So Pam, were you just showing us the crack and that was there?
11:20So that's the crack up on the ceiling. Yeah. But that doesn't appear to be anything to do with
11:26this part. That's been there 20 years that? Yeah. 20 years. 20 years and not got any worse? No. And it's been
11:30monitored for the last three years by the council themselves and he's taken photographs and it
11:37proved that this hasn't moved.