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.”

Deadline Looms for Consultation on Proposed Victoria Hall Scheme
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.

Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More

This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism.

Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets.

We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more.

However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do.

We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area.

A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site.

One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute.

If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.