Deadline Looms for Consultation on Victoria Hall Scheme
Campaigners to save the venue say plan will undermine Trust's finances
The Victoria Hall before its closure in September 2023. Picture: Roger Green
April 22, 2024
Campaigners against the sale of Victoria Hall as part of the Ealing Town Hall development are saying that an ongoing consultation on the issue has been designed to fail due to poor publicity.
The latest round of public consultation on the issue is due to end this Sunday (28 April).
In July 2016 Ealing Council entered into an agreement with a developer to sell off its Town Hall on a 250-year lease to turn it into a luxury hotel. However, over 20% of Ealing Town Hall consists of the Victoria Hall, built by public donations and since 1893 the property of a charitable trust set up for the benefit of the local community that had paid for it.
The consultation is being held by the Charity Commission’s which wants to implement a new set of rules (a ‘Scheme’) for the Trust which would clear the way for Ealing Council to take control of the Victoria Hall.
Roger Green, Chair of the Friends of the Victoria Hall, said, “There has been little effort to run a proper public consultation. Information about it has been hidden away on an obscure Council public notices web page that is hardly ever updated and a note pinned to a corner of a graffiti-daubed notice board in front of Ealing’s now-abandoned Town Hall.”
The graffiti-daubed notice board outside Ealing Town Hall which has been closed down since September 2023. Picture: Roger Green
He added, “The latest Scheme in our view is even less satisfactory than the old one. What would be left to the charitable Trust would be much reduced in size and flexibility. No space would be available to the community from Friday evenings to Monday mornings except at boutique hotel wedding reception rates.
“The Council’s mismanagement of the charity-owned property – the Victoria and Prince’s Halls plus associated rooms – has persisted for decades. Having not produced audited accounts for the charity for many years, it has presented the Commission with a dubious set of figures that effectively annihilate the charity by saddling it with massive historic debt. It even denies the charity any future income from the hiring of the space, by stipulating that for the developer should receive this.
“This latest Scheme, the Commission’s third, seems to be designed to ensure that the Victoria Hall Trust will go out of business, with the loss to the communities in Ealing of the facilities originally intended by the original philanthropists.”
A council spokesperson said,“The council estimates that the Trust has run at an operating loss for many years, up until 2018/19, this operating loss was covered by the council by way of subsidy.
“However, this approach was not sustainable and therefore the council identified a sustainable route for the Trust to be financially viable for the long term. Namely, by bringing in a commercial partner to modernise and upgrade trust property for the benefit of all residents and cover its maintenance costs.
“It is extremely disappointing that the actions of a small number of unelected local residents have led to those plans being delayed, while the Trust’s losses have continued to mount during that period of delay.
“Since 2018/19, the council has supported the Trust’s annual losses by means of a loan. It is fair and appropriate that this loan will be repayable by the Trust in due course, once the redevelopment happens.
“Because it has no other assets or income stream, it is expected that this loan will be met from the Trust’s share of any capital receipt from the redevelopment and the ongoing income streams proposed in both the scheme and the wider development agreement”.
Representations about the proposed Scheme can be made here.
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