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.