How you can help save the Victoria Hall

Ealing Council wants to hand over Victoria Hall and the Princes Hall to a developer. See our story of December 2nd for full details of the Council’s plans for the Town Hall.

There are several things you can do.

!. Object to the Council scheme, now published by the Charity Commission (details at http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Schemes/4057721.pdf). Since our last e-news, the Friends of Victoria Hall have suggested how best to comment.  You can find out more on through these links to the Friends web site:
What’s wrong with the deal
What Ealing is saying
How to object

There is more background in a video at https://exposurebox.com/save-victoria-hall/.

The Charity Commission allowed only 30 days over the Christmas period for the consultation, but after the Friends objected this has been extended to Monday 6 January 2020. Please find time to submit your views, ideally in your own words but based on the reasons set out in the Friends’ summary. Please do it as soon as possible.

2. Sign the petition on 38degrees.org.uk.

3. Join the Friends by using the form at 
http://www.cepac.org.uk/uploads/1/3/3/4/13344659/fovh_joining_form_p1_11-19_nf.pdf

Thanks to the Campaign for an Ealing Performance & Arts Centre for this information.

Ealing CVS is successful in bid to take over West Ealing Library

Ealing Community and Voluntary Service (CVS), currently based at the Lido building, has been successful with its bid to take over West Ealing Library and run it as a community managed library. It seems Ealing Law Centre has been successful in its bid for Hanwell Library

West Ealing Library is due to shut after tomorrow in preparation for the handover to Ealing CVS. You can find out all about Ealing CVS and what is does here.

Residents urged to reject latest scheme for Victoria Hall sell off

1 December 2019 — Ealing residents have been urged to reject the scheme proposed by the Charity Commission that would allow Ealing Council to sell off the Victoria Hall as part of its Town Hall deal with a hotel operator.

The Victoria Hall was built next to Ealing Town Hall with money raised through a Victorian crowdfunding campaign. It is owned by a charitable Trust set up in 1893 to run the Victoria Hall for the benefit of local people. The Hall has hosted countless meetings, entertainments and exhibitions over the years.

However, for nearly two years the Council has been trying to persuade the Charity Commission to allow it to amend the Trust rules so that the Victoria Hall can be included in a £2.5m sell-off of the Town Hall site.

The Commission has just published the draft of a Scheme that would clear the way for this to happen, subject to the result of a public consultation that is due to end on 26 December 2019.

Roger Green, chair of The Friends of the Victoria Hall (FoVH), said: “Even a cursory look at the Charity Commission proposal shows that this would be a very poor deal indeed for Ealing residents. They’d likely lose affordable access to facilities that have been serving the community for 126 years.

 “The prospect of losing the Borough’s largest indoor community space to a private company is bad enough, but the terms under which it would happen are just too soft. Incredibly, the Council seems to be prepared to let the whole of the Town Hall and Victoria Hall go for less than the price of a three-bedroom flat in Dickens Yard. That can’t be right.”

A  FoVH team is going through the fine detail of the Charity Commission’s draft Victoria Hall Trust Scheme in order to lodge detailed objections. FoVH has requested an extension to the consultation period which it believes is absurdly short in the run-up to the Christmas break.