Greenhalgh says that “there’s no fire sale”. Cowan urges him to “work with the community”. Greenhalgh, “We inherited this deficit from blah, blah, blah”. Phibbs, “this meeting is getting noisy”. That’s the first time I’ve agreed with him. Then he throws wobbly “We’ll just have to end the meeting”! Cllr Cowan reminds Greenhalgh that he didn’t answer his questions. The audience are getting agitated, a slow handclap begins.
An excellent report of last night's Council meeting, at which the buildings housing so many local voluntary services were designated surplus to requirements and will now be sold. With thanks to Guy Debord's Cat for a very well written account.
1400 UPDATE: The Conservatives see things rather differently, as you might expect. In the interests of balance it's worth saying that, as Councillor Phibbs in the comments to this post explains, many of the groups there last night were aiming to buy the buildings from the Council themselves. Here's what the Conservatives take on the meeting looks like:
"while the Labour Party dogmatically oppose the sale of any the buildings, several of the community groups are keen to buy them. Some were protesting under the misconception that we didn't think their money was a good as anyone else's or that we were planning to sell the buildings straight away. The Irish Cultural Centre, for example, have every prospect of raising the money to buy their buildings."
Read in full here.
2100 UPDATE - you can watch last night's Newsnight programme on Hammersmith & Fulham's night of cuts here
Chris,
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought was interesting was what was supposed to be a protest against the sale of the buildings actually saw community groups pitching to buy them.
http://hfconservatives.typepad.com/residents_first/2011/02/the-big-society-in-hammersmith-and-fulham-is-thriving.html