Gilstrap lease is best for charity
The Gilstrap Charity has agreed to use a significant part of the rental income it would receive from leasing the Gilstrap Centre to enhance current museum displays and exhibits and buy new exhibits for Newark Castle.
Newark and Sherwood District Council is the sole trustee of the charity whose assets include the Gilstrap Centre on Castlegate, Newark, and land at Lincoln Road.
Members of the general purposes committee act as trustees on the council’s behalf.
The committee, in its capacity as trustees, met in secret on Monday and endorsed consultation being carried out on the charity’s intention to lease the centre to Nottinghamshire County Council to use the building as a register office.
A statement issued after the meeting said the trustees also accepted the district council’s offer of leasing rooms in Newark Castle at a peppercorn rent for displaying exhibits currently in the Gilstrap.
In recent years the council has provided a subsidy to the charity to enable the Gilstrap to be used as a museum.
The statement said the charity felt a lease to the county council at full market value was in its best interests, and would also ensure a register office continued in the town centre.
The district council indicated it was unlikely that its subsidy could continue beyond the current financial year, and the alternative option facing the charity was to mothball the building.
The Tourist Information Centre at the Gilstrap would move but the toilets there would remain for public use.
The district council says the county council will take possession of the building in April next year and open it as a register office in September.
The register office in Baldertongate will stay open until the new premises are ready.
The chairman of the trustees, Mr Ivor Walker, said: “The charity understands the significance of this building and the need to retain it for the community and to preserve the important legacy which surrounds this facility.”
The Gilstrap Centre opened as a public library in 1883.
