Forum Topic

Hanwell Community Centre

I see that the leader of Ealing Council, Julian Bell has said that they are taking over the running of Hanwell Community Centre from 1st April.  I understand this was after the Hanwell Community Centre company which has run it for many years refused the Council’s revised rent terms.  Apparently the rent of £200,000 per annum was set assuming the Centre was fully rented out at all times.  I was also told that Ealing Council only intend to run it until they could find someone else to take it off their hands.  Who do they think they are kidding?  Take a look around the borough and see how many vacant business premises there are.  How likely is it that a building surrounded by broken up tarmac and weeds, with no lift and no furniture could be fully rented out.  Only a tiny part of the building was redecorated and refurbished before Labour took over and pulled the plug.  My prediction for 2013 is that the rent can’t be met by either Ealing Council or anyone else and guess what the result will be?  Back to square one which was where we were with the previous Labour administration – trying to rid themselves of their responsibility.  Why can’t Hanwell’s Community Centre by treated like all the other community centres in the borough who are not deemed to be commercial business premises and can afford paid staff as well as receiving a cleaning allowance?

Mary Dmarys ● 4847d19 Comments

I understood that although use of installed computer facilities by other than Ealing Council had been suggested, this had been rejected by the council. Hanwell Community Centre would have been responsible for additional 24 hour security.

Chris Bell ● 4834d

The idea that the council was to be charged, for the use, during daytime only, for the few training rooms (which then the Centre could have hired out in the evening to other group or organisations) far more than what the HCC would have to pay for the rent for the use of whole of the building, is simply preposterous. Even more so, considering that all the brand new equipment and furniture in these rooms belonged to the training centre and not the HHC.This building, although owned by the council, was run by HHC ltd.As a Ltd. Company the leaseholder should have run that building as any other business concern. Like any other business organisation they should ensure to make  the most of the facilities it has, by advertising and attracting more business and by making sure that what it charges the various groups and organisation using the facilities covers its running costs. The HHC may have attracted groups from outside the area but I can assure you that most of the people living in the Cuckoo Estate did not know what was offered in the centre, in fact they thought that it had ceased to operate many years ago. This is certainly not the way to run a business!

Rosa Popham ● 4835d

What a strange world you live in Rosa.  I assume you don’t look after the accounts in your household.  Surely there are costs in running a huge building like that.  You don’t just pocket all the payments you receive and that’s that.  What about the outgoings like rates, insurance, gas, electricity, water, cleaning staff costs, tax, national insurance, repairs etc.

Mary Sharwood ● 4835d

Mary,What the letter says is that the HCC Ltd. wanted was a rent  (for the whole of the building) that started at a lower baseline and graduallly increased to a maximum of £150K as opposed to the council' Iindepended evaluation of £295,863. however, what it did not say is that the HCC board was demanding a rent of £200K from the council for the daily use of  few rooms to be used for the training centre making therefore a profit of over and above £50K.

Rosa Popham ● 4837d

It says in a letter in this morning's Ealing Gazette from John Sear of Hanwell Community Centre that HCC Ltd's valuation was £150,000 not £200,000.

Mary Sharwood ● 4837d

"It was the board’s reluctance of agreeing to renegotiate the membership of the board so that it would have included fully pledged members representing the local community, users and council’s representatives the main reason why negotiations came to a standstill."What?!?!?!Could you garble that again - this time in plain english please?"...on the contrary - is a question to state the facts."Indeed.As a relatively disinterested observer who is nonetheless following along it would be great if I could actually at least parse the communications using the normal rules of english grammar.

Tony Colliver ● 4838d

John Sear, Chair of Hanwell Community Centre Limited, informed the members himself that the council's counsultants had suggested a £290,000/year rental for the building and that HCC Limited own consultants had put forward the figure of £200,000.I was at that meeting and took some minutes for myself as I always did because minutes would not be produced by HCC. It seems that it is too late now to waste time blaming any council administration and/or indeed the current HCC Board of Directors. We should all look at the future of the Community Centre past 31st March 2013 and as a community make sure that it is successful for the community. We can't change its past but can all have a big impact on its future.

Dominique Morgan ● 4838d

Perhaps you may recall that in 2006 there were plans to turn most of this building into residential units with only a small portion of the building allocated to a much reduced community centre. As a local councillor in 2006-2010, I took a personal interest in what was happening to the HCC first by opposing these plans and then by lobbying to see this building remaining as a cente for the community. I also followed and was kept informed on how things were progressing by holding regular meetings with the consultant in charge of negotiations between the council and the HHC Ltd.  or, better still, the then manager of the HHC who, for most of the time, was the spokesman for the board. I also took a keen interest on the shaping of ‘The Vision’ for the future of the HCC.The annual rent which was being negotiated for the use of the council’s training facilities had nothing to do with money set aside for the refurbishment or for the future upkeep of the building. In fact the decision to place the training centre in there was a well mean gesture to demonstrate the council’s commitment to invest in the successful future of the HCC. - there were a number of other council’s owned buildings which could have easily accommodated the training centre.It was the board’s reluctance of agreeing to renegotiate the membership of the board so that it would have included fully pledged members representing the local community, users and council’s representatives the main reason why negotiations came to a standstill. As you know, following the local elections in 2010 the conservative administration lost the election and the new administration took over the negotiations for this centre. As you can see, it is not a question of being agressive or being politically motivated - on the contrary - is a question to state the facts.

Rosa Popham ● 4838d

Hi Rosa - you seem well informed on certain aspects of this topic. I am no apologist for the way the centre has been run but have no political axe to grind either. My memory is that the former council leader - Jason Stacey - personally negotiated the deal with the leaseholders where the council agreed an annual rental (I had no idea it was £200k) which included elements for continued upkeep of the areas refurbished, for slow renovation of the rest of the building and considerable security enhancements both for when council staff were in the building and when it was unoccupied.I don't know the terms of the lease but would imagine the freeholder (Ealing Council) retains some level of responsibility for the condition of the building.The notice released to the press and widely covered at the time is cited here:http://appasp.ealingtoday.co.uk/server/app/forum/ShowMessage.asp?ID=408989 If I recall correctly, Billy Elliot was filmed in the summer (August?) of 1999.  I seem to remember 3 weeks of filming which prevented us from playing 5-a-side.  Since that time, there have been a lot of building projects, some funded by the freeholder and some by the leaseholder.  At this remove, I have no idea how much fee was received for that particular film shoot but I doubt whether it would have lasted 14 years regardless of how careful the board of governors had been!It seems more likely to me - having glanced over the years at several iterations of the publicly available accounts - that the £30k you mention came from members' fees and subscriptions.  I don't really understand the tenor of your comments in this regard but the leaseholders seemed to me to be placed in a situation where they could either withdraw quietly or - as they chose to do - fight the council and attempt to maintain the centre on their own terms.Over the years, the council has variously co-opted its own people onto the leaseholder's board of governors but they have never really carried the day at AGMs and other meetings.  At the few meetings I attended this was demonstrated by voting members voting against their suggested use for the building and a strategy to take it forward.I am frequently amazed by how quickly topics on this forum go from informative to aggressive!

Phil Kay ● 4839d

If I remember correctly, the HCC Ltd, were quite happy to charge the council £200K a year rent for the use, during the day time only, for most of the rooms that were allocated for the council’s own training dept. Apart from the offices that had documents and files relating to the training centre, all other rooms were to be put for community use in the evening. Therefore the rental charge of £200K to the leaseholders for the use of the whole of the HCC seems to me quite a fair, if not a small amount, especially when considering the amount of ratepayers’ money allocated (£4.5M) and spent so far (£3.8M) by the previous conservative administration in refurbishing this magnificent building. As for the £30K lost in the court case, I have an idea where that money came from: most probably it was part of the money that the HCC Ltd received from the Billy Elliot film - any other organisation would have spent that money in the upkeep od the bilding rather that let it to rot by the elements and from neglet.

Rosa Popham ● 4841d

I think that was included in the £30,000 referenced by Dominique in her post.The whole issue is a difficult one to judge - the council (as owners of the building) insisted on a consultant's report and then obliged Hanwell Community Centre Ltd (the leaseholders) to pay for it and then fought them in court.

Phil Kay ● 4843d

Out of interest does anyone know how much the consultants were paid to come up with the figure of £200,000 annual rent?

David Highton ● 4844d

I understand that Ealing Technical Services use Unix compatible software in the background, and had considered replacing Microsoft for all services. This plan was apparently shelved because of the lack of staff qualifications and training. Not all IT staff had experience of Unix compatibles such as Linux, although the general experience is that very few experienced qualified staff are required. The rest of the council staff would need to learn about the use of compatible software such as OpenOffice/LibreOffice and Firefox instead of the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Word, and Microsoft Office (which are not always compatible with previous versions).Some councils have saved money by switching to Unix compatibles, often based on Linux.

Chris Bell ● 4844d

I am one of the “standard members and users” referred to by Dominique and yet I too know all of the details Mary – the original poster – sets out.  I have no involvement with the Board but I do occasionally attend AGMs and EGMs and have done since around 1988.Chris - the last Conservative council spent many million pounds on refurbishing several of the rooms in the centre – these were decked out with computer equipment for the training of council staff.When the Labour council was re-elected, they immediately pulled the plug on continued funding and removed all of the computers, desks, chairs, whiteboards etc with which the rooms had been fully furnished.  To my knowledge, there has never been a plan to convert the centre into a school and I shudder to think how much that would cost, given the layout of the buildings.A year or so ago, the council commissioned a consultants’ report into what level of annual rent they should charge Hanwell Community Centre Ltd – the organisation which has run the centre for many years.  They came out with a figure of around £200,000.  I am totally ignorant of this process but, as Mary points out, it seemed odd that this was based on an assumption of near total room occupancy.  I will be amazed (but delighted) if the council get anywhere near this.Following a court case, Hanwell Community Centre Ltd had no choice but to agree to stand down from running the centre, as next year’s £200,000 rent is greater than any previous years’ turnover.As a user, my concern is that the council will run the centre for a short time, realise that the projected earnings can never be realised and then try to change the use of the building – perhaps even trying to sell it – as the last Labour council tried.

Phil Kay ● 4844d

Mary, Hanwell Community Centre will survive and with the help of the Community become a vibrant democratically run centre. One needs to think of a positive approach to make the centre survive. I have been using the centre for 11 years. It has as great amount of space and plenty of potential and history. Current and prospective users need to have a vision for it rather than moan and get involved in politics. Can I suggest you carefully look at the current and past accounts of the Community Centre, available from Companies House or from the Charity Commission website. It seems that the poor management of the Board of Directors for years has been a handicap to a bright and vibrant future for HCC. The community can get together and make it work very well indeed. Its about having a vision, knowing the needs of the community in which we live and be prepared to adapt. Not moan about the past and involve politics. The Centre will still be there when the party of the local council who runs Ealing at the moment has changed.When it is successful, democratically run (which it has not been for many years)and well established in the Community,the rent monies won't be a problem.The £30K that the recent court case has cost the Community Centre are much more of an issue for a registered charity - which lost the court case -than the rent monies which will be charged.May I ask: do you use the Centre or are you writing on behalf of a current Board member?A lot of the info you use would not be available to standard members and users.

Dominique Morgan ● 4845d

I think it is grade 2 listed.http://www.hanwellcommunitycentre.co.uk

Chris Bell ● 4846d

Hanwell Community Centre would make a great hotel - shame it hasn't been used to its full capacity for years. An interesting building really.

Gerry Tan ● 4847d

Is HCC a listed building ?I recall aa few years ago rumours of it being levelled to the ground, the land sold to the developers and another ghastly estate replacing it, but these rumours fizzled out.

Bud Richards ● 4847d

I gather that a previous plan was for the council to grab some of the biggest and best of the old classrooms and use them for staff training. Perhaps they now intend to convert the complete building into a school.

Chris Bell ● 4847d