Let's see,Save the Vistoria Hall activist says: "The Victoria Hall was built with publicly donated money as a space for the benefit of all local residents. It is controlled by a charity dedicated to this purpose. Its sale to a hotel operator can only accelerate the loss of local identity and the trend towards the area becoming increasingly inward looking and anti-social."I respond:The presence of someone actually using the space, looking after it, and the hundreds of extra people each nigh staying in the hotel looking to make use of Ealing's facilities shops and restaurants will help to make the area less inward looking and less anti-social. People will be staying in central Ealing who will bring new life into a decaying core of run-down businesses and seedy bars. The only things I ever recall being held in the Victoria Hall were the Ealing in Bloom competition shindig (because it got the hall free) and a talk years ago about heridity held by the Ealing Historical Society years ago or something similar. It is an ancient un-airconditioned Victorian hall with no sound insulation, thermal insulation, or moderm theatical lighting and so on. It would cost millions to refurbish it to provide the seating and technical enviroment of a viable theatre for continuous use.Next,The Save the Victoria Hall activist says:"New housing is indeed vital, but without facilities for artistic and social activities, affordable to local people, it will become a soulless dormitory without a heart. Ealing has been losing its publicly available buildings at an alarming rate, and its social cohesion is at serious risk."I respond:If we spend public money on facilities for artistic and social activities of the sort envisioned by the half-wits trying to save the hall we will be robbing Peter to pay Paul in a very real way as the money will literally come out of the mouhes of babes who have already had support cut as a result of social welfare cuts, in this climate of food banks and very real hardship in Ealing only a psychopath (or a sociopath) or in this case a whole group of them, would seriously consider trying to force the Council to pony-up money for a subsidised (artistic.. activites AFFORDABLE to the local people) theatre (i.e. subsidised by the allegedly bottomless (NOT) local public purse) at the expense of the ill, the disabled, the homeless, those sleeping on the streets, and so on.Our social cohesion will at be greater risk if more people go hungry, have to go to foodbanks, or are not able to afford their homes because you have taken it for a sibsidized theatre (WITH A BAR).Then,The Save the Victoria Hall activist says:"A community needs social infrastructure. The Victoria Hall is designed for this purpose, and is quite unsuitable for conversion into housing. It should be kept for the community as intended by its original donors."I point out in response here:A community needs the social infrastructure of disabled support centres, mental health centres, libraries, and the like all of which in my mind come somewhat higher in the list of humanitarian priority than a subsidized theatre (with by definition a sudsidized club bar).I suspect the Save the Victoria Hall activits would have got along very well with Marie Antoinette: if they have no bread "Let them eat cake"It's old, its run down, it would cost millions to turn into a safe working theatre, the only things of any value is some rather bog-standard Victorian architectural features that can be protect appropriately, spend the money on Ealing's people instead
Mark Julian Raymond ● 2278d