Community views will be sought on the future uses for the cafe attached to the Candelo Town Hall following agreement about leases on the hall and cafe at the last council meeting.
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The cafe and town hall are part of the same building but have separate Crown Lands leases managed by council. The cafe has a chequered history in recent years and president of the hall committee Sam Martin said it seemed to be a difficult place to make money.
"There are two leases and we felt that it might be better if it was one space managed by the town hall committee," Mr Martin said.
"It could be re-imagined and re-used by the community. It's all conceptual at this stage and we plan to have a community meeting to hear ideas," he added.
The call to make the two leases into one comes at an appropriate time. Council has received funding from Department of Premier and Cabinet through the Stronger Country Communities Funding program to upgrade the hall kitchen.
Mr Martin said there was some underpinning work that needed to be done as well.
"But it looked like it was better to move the hall kitchen near to the cafe kitchen," he said.
The move could open up new spaces potentially for community use.
At the council meeting Candelo resident Sandie Rocca spoke in favour of having a community discussion about the space although she felt it could be used as commercial premises.
"I feel that Candelo is such a vibrant community. There are no commercial dwellings for lease though and this is a fantastic opportunity to do something with this space; it could be for a new business or a co-working space," Ms Rocca said.
Mr Martin said that he plans to call a community meeting in about six weeks time to discuss the space.
"We have to deal with the lease and Crown Lands first but I'm confident we can do this," he added.
At the council meeting councillors agreed to terminate the cafe lease, proceed with debt recovery for the rental arrears owing, make an application to Crown Lands to modify the town hall/café building for future use by the community and hold a community meeting in Candelo to discuss "additional uses of the town hall/café building, opportunities of uses of the bowling club and traffic movements in the town".