A row has broken out between community groups and South Lanarkshire Council over a misleading statement

On page three of last week’s Gazette we printed the story of how Thancard Trust, T.I.G. (Thankerton Improvement Group) and members of Quothquan and Thankerton Community Council had attempted to make a booking at the local hall in the village.

This was following news that the hall seemed set to close as the council’s funding to operators, South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture was to be cut.

Communities across South Lanarkshire were being urged to consider taking responsibility of the halls themselves as community-run assets instead of the council.

And to that end, the Thankerton community wanted to consider whether this was a viable option. A public meeting was arranged but when organisers tried to book the hall to hold the meeting, they told the Gazette that no response was forthcoming other than the standard acknowledgement of the hire request from the council, and that they were unable to make the booking.

When the Gazette originally approached South Lanarkshire Council for a comment, they told us, and we printed: “We have received no recent booking requests for Thankerton Hall from Thancard Trust and the TIG (Thankerton Improvement Group).

“In general, when we receive any enquiry about a hall booking, we advise that final confirmation would be

pending staff availability.

"At Thankerton there is sufficient cover to accommodate bookings currently.”

Now, Thancard Trust, T.I.G. (Thankerton Improvement Group) and members of Quothquan and Thankerton Community Council have contacted the Gazette with a copy of their original email enquiring about booking the hall, which they say proves that the statement provided by the council’s press office is factually incorrect and that we, the Gazette, have been misled.

We contacted South Lanarkshire Council for an explanation and an apology to the two organisations whom we had named in our story, which suggested, as a result of the council statement, had made no attempt to book the hall, whereas this now appears not to have been the case.

A spokesperson for South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture responded: “We can confirm that we received an email to our general Customer Services team with an enquiry about booking the hall.

“The reason why we said originally we had not received an enquiry is because this is not the normal procedure for booking a hall, which meant it was not logged in our hall booking system.

“Enquiries which are sent to the Customer Services team generate an automatic reply which was the case in this instance.

“It should also be pointed out that a day later a post on social media mistakenly said the hall was closed for new bookings.

“This is not and wasn’t the case. Indeed, if the group had allowed time for the request to be processed, the hall was available for booking on the evening in question.

"The social media post also said they had found alternative accommodation for the meeting.”