Interesting times for Croydon’s major arts centre, the Fairfield Halls, with the Conservatives who control the council pushing through a £27 million capital works project and announcing this week that they effectively want to “re-nationalise” the struggling centre.
Fairfield Halls: can the management see the wood for the trees?
Tonight, the public get a chance to have a say on its future, with a meeting of the South Croydon Community Association.
This is the second such meeting and is open to all – contrary to claims from the Croydon Establishment, who tried to make out that figures from the board and management of the Fairfield Halls were in some way excluded from the previous event.
Tonight’s meeting begins at 7pm at St Michael’s Church Hall, Poplar Walk, Croydon.
The organisers say, “The objective is to get all arts and cultural organisations across Croydon together to discuss how we can create a vision for arts, and take practical steps to realise it.”
If you wish to contribute but cannot make the meeting, please email your comments to South Croydon Community Association at scca@btconnect.com. We will collate the comments and suggestions from the meeting and provide feedback to all participants and interested parties.
Updates will be published on the SCCA website.
- Failing Fairfield Halls is limping along on borrowed time
- Flawed council plan puts flats too close to Fairfield Halls
- Croydon arts policy: no librarians, but £1.5m for Fairfield Halls
- Michael Jackson to play at Fairfield Halls. Not (of course)
- Inside Croydon: For comment and analysis about Croydon, from inside Croydon
- Post your comments on this article below. If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, a residents’ or business association or local event, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
To be fair regarding the £27 million, Timothy Godfrey has said that this has cross-party support.
But you, of all people, Adrian, ought to be aware of the context of Croydon Council finding £27 million of public money for work that needs doing to a venue where Dudley Mead, the deputy leader of the Conservative group on the council, wields such influence, and when the council has decided to take over the running of the complex.
This at a time when when all other arts programmes in the borough, including the non-loss-making David Lean Cinema, the Warehouse Theatre’s modest £30,000 annual grant, and the annual Mela and music festival, have been axed.
Given that Fairfield’s annual £1 million operation grant has never been so much as questioned, doesn’t this strike even you as somewhat biased treatment?