The future of the former Maclean services club remains unclear; however, liquidation of the club’s assets was all but completed last week.
The club, which was independently operated, was placed in voluntary administration in June; subsequently the club’s creditors met in July, unanimously voting to liquidate the club.
The building is owned by the Maclean RSL Sub-branch, the club’s lease was due to expire in April 2022.
“All that can be sold has been sold to pay club’s debts of around $400,000,” sub-branch president Stephen Walton said.
“The books, however, are not finalised yet; about half of [the money to pay creditors] will come from gaming machine entitlements.”
Mr Walton said a “working party had been tidying up during week to make the club look presentable”.
“The sub-branch will use the hall until we sell it and find a new location for the sub-branch to move to,” he said.
“The bottom line is the space is too expensive for us; if it’s just sitting there it costs around $20,000 a year for rates, insurance and other expenses.
“We need a venue to suit our specific needs, regarding service delivery, that is cheaper to run – it’s a big building that needs up-keep and, as a charity, we are not able to do that.”
Mr Walton said his sub-branch was still having confidential discussions with Clarence Valley Council and said he was unable to comment about that.
That decision, taken by CVC’s councillors at the August CVC meeting, remains confidential under Section 10A 2 (d) ii of the Local Government Act, which specifies that “commercial information of a confidential nature that would, if disclosed, confer a commercial advantage on a competitor of the council … can be closed to the public”.
Mr Walton confirmed that the sub-branch is also continuing discussions with Hope Bennett from Riverview Funerals, who made a $1.2million offer to purchase the property.
Ms Bennett withdrew a development application to turn the building into a funeral home and has previously told the Independent that the prospective purchase “has not fallen through”, as a result.
However, Ms Bennett was not contactable at the time of writing.
Mr Walton said that while the liquidation is “pretty well finalised … we still have to work out the cents in the dollar that creditors will receive”.