As the council grows increasingly desperate to save its awful deal to give away our much loved town hall to hotel developer Mastcraft, in exchange for a couple of million pounds to spruce up offices for councillors, there is a new consultation in town. As published in this week’s Ealing Gazette – the Council is now admitting plans to give away the assets of the Victoria Hall Trust, and trying to put a positive spin on its reasons for doing so.
Ealing Voice says there are many factual inaccuracies in the latest statements, including about financial viability, and that our questions raised under FOI have still not been answered.
We will be making a full response in the early part of the coming week, after allowing David Moore of Ealing Council the chance to respond to our questions about the validity and content of this new consultation.
Watch this space!
It is shocking.
Their inability to organise the Cinema speaks volumes for what may happen next if they DO sell to Mastcraft Ltd.
If the hotel development is not commercially viable, the whole plan will stall, and the site will become a black hole. In twenty years the Town Hall will be flats. Once sold and the commercial value of the hotel complex undefined , there will be easy pickings for the second wave of developers hoping to turn it into “much needed” housing…But for the Council today, that is not important, only today’s balance sheet. Acton Town Hall and Library have been asset stripped. Ealing next.
Incidentally the same argument about financial constraints were used during the redevelopment of Gunnersbury Park (shared with Hounslow Council) They sought justify the sale of land on Lionel Road for housing development. They lost that argument.