Monday, 23 May 2011

Shepherd's Bush Village Hall: gone by Sept



I've been listening to the community groups threatened with eviction by the Council from Shepherd's Bush Village Hall in the last few days, who appear to have given up the fight. The groups, which include the Shepherd's Bush Families Project, Sure Start and the West London School of dance have been clearing their areas of the hall and preparing to leave, while a mood of despondency has set in among some of those who launched a campaign to save the Hall in February this year.

The Hall was of course the venue for Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's disastrous visit to the Borough when he came face-face with the community groups faced with homelessness, as part of our Council's strategy of flogging most of the buildings it owns to save cash and cut the local authority's debt.

The only light at the end of the tunnel could be a plan for two of the groups to buy the building from the Council themselves, but in order to do so they would have to vacate the building by Septemberand stump up the cash shortly thereafter. With no deadline extension for raising the money in sight and little real anticipation of that happening it seems the Village Hall is set to slip out of the community's hands.
Posted by Chris Underwood at 05:23

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous23 May 2011 at 10:20

    It's a shame. How many communities in London still have their village hall?

    Also, is Fulham Town Hall a listed building? I hope so.

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  2. Anonymous23 May 2011 at 17:07

    Another public service biting the bullet. But hey - Hammersmith and Fulham havn't raised their council tax for another year so that's okay right?

    Once more the books are balanced on the backs of the poor that H&F havn't managed to force from the borough yet. God bless this Flagship Conservative Local Authority.

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  3. John23 May 2011 at 23:15

    The remarkable thing about that video is that some snotty acting and sounding MP, namely Andy Slaughter, has no shame in aggressively hectoring the council in the presence of children. It seems he thought any sense of threat the children might feel as a result of the charged atmosphere would be worth it for his little spot of television coverage - that's if he even thought about that aspect of his actions at all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous24 May 2011 at 09:57

    I think it's disgusting that the council leader can dare visit there to take part in a photoshoot after closing the place down...

    ReplyDelete

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