‘Jewel in Croydon’s crown’ for sale: the Fairfield Halls has suffered a checkered past few years, with a botched and incomplete refurbishment costing the council £72m
CROYDON IN CRISIS: With the council’s annual overspend reaching £100m, Whitehall-appointed commissioners could force the sale of the arts centre, which the C20 Society describes as an ‘underappreciated South Bank Centre of the suburbs’. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Croydon could have to sell the Fairfield Halls, the latest “asset disposal” forced upon the cash-strapped council as it faces a new financial year confronted by a £100million budget overspend and without any real prospect of plugging its financial black hole.
A sale is unlikely to recoup anything close to the £72million cost of the Halls’ 2016-2019 botched refurbishment, piling yet more misery on the borough’s long-suffering residents.
The shocking news was first aired by this website’s monthly podcast, The Croydon Insider, when Ria Patel, a councillor for Fairfield ward, revealed that she had been told at a briefing by the government-imposed improvement and assurance panel that they were recommending that the Fairfield Halls should be sold.
Councillor Patel called any sale of the Fairfield Halls, “Like selling the family silver.”
Croydon Council did not respond to repeated requests for comment on a possible sale of the Halls. Significantly, the council failed to issue any denial.
Gala occasion: the Queen Mother at the Fairfield Halls opening in 1962
However, a spokesperson for the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to whom the improvement panel is answerable, told Inside Croydon that the panel “continues to work with the council to identify suitable properties to include in the asset disposal programme”.
The Fairfield Halls, world-famous for its Concert Hall’s peerless acoustics and a little less-well-regarded for staging professional wrestling for ITV’s World of Sport in the 1970s, has long been regarded as Croydon’s cultural “jewel in the crown”.
Designed by Robert Atkinson in an unapologetic nod towards the architecture of the Royal Festival Hall, the Fairfield Halls was intended to be part of a larger development project in the area that would create “a modern and vibrant town centre”.
The council-owned arts centre was opened by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in 1962 and over the subsequent decade or so it staged performances by an impressive range of top-of-the-bill acts, including The Beatles, David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, The Who, Status Quo and Queen, as well as hosting classical concerts by some of the world’s leading orchestras, instrumentalists and conductors.
Its Ashcroft Theatre was also well-known for producing high-end drama, family shows and annual pantomimes, as well as staging am-dram productions by local groups as well as some of the best-loved comedy acts.
Love Me Do: The Beatles on stage at the Fairfield Halls in April 1963. one of the major acts the venue used to attract
The fate of the Halls this century has been less storied, however, with its facilities – front- and back-of-house – needing urgent upgrading and modernising, while its productions have become increasingly lacklustre, hosting more tribute acts than genuine stars.
In 2016, the Halls were closed for what was supposed to be two years for a £30million refurbishment. The Halls re-opened three years later, in September 2019, but were soon forced to close because of the covid lockdown.
The controversial refurbishment was overseen by the council-owned housing company, Brick by Brick, which at that point had not managed to build as much as a garden shed, never mind undertake a significant and complicated project with a heritage building.
It proved to be a disaster, it emerging later that the botched and incomplete refurbishment had in fact cost £72million – proving to be one of the major factors in the council’s financial collapse in late 2020.
Any forced sale of the Fairfield Halls is likely to be viewed as adding the final insult to the injuries caused to Croydon by the toxic legacy of former council chief exec Jo Negrini, her Brick by Brick brainchild and the Labour-run council under Tony Newman and Alison Butler.
Wrecking crew: BxB’s Fairfield fiasco, spending £72m on the botched refurbishment, was a major factor in bankrupting the borough
Since 2019, the Fairfield Halls venue and its artistic programme has been managed by BH Live, a Bournemouth-based swimming pool and leisure centre operator. The arrangement suits Croydon Council, which no longer has to provide the £1million annual subsidy towards the venue’s production costs.
But two artistic directors have resigned their jobs at the Fairfield Halls since 2020, the latest leaving 18 months ago and never having been replaced by his employers, BH Live, who do not seem to be in any hurry to find a replacement, nor to provide a more dynamic and attractive programme of shows.
Now, what just 12 months ago was at the heart of Mayor Jason Perry’s Borough of Culture celebrations, faces an even more uncertain future.
The possibility of another arts promoter coming in to buy the venue seems unlikely.
That would leave the prospect of the Fairfield Halls being bought by a property developer, facing the bulldozer as the site might be cleared for housing.
Man with a plan: Tony McArdle, the £1,000-a-day chair of the improvement panel since 2021, wants Croydon to sell the Fairfield Halls
In his last report to the government, Tony McArdle, the £1,000-a-day chair of the improvement panel, said that Croydon “remains financially unsustainable without significant government support”.
That was when the 2025-2026 budget overspend was thought to be only £83million. Reports published by the council yesterday show that that overspend has ballooned in just two months to £98million, while the overspend for the current financial year, 2024-2025, has now increased to an estimated £35million.
“The council is likely to require a greater level of exceptional financial support in 2025-2026 than in the current year,” McArdle wrote in his report in November.
“The ability of the council to meet its asset disposal target this year is also at risk,” he warned.
That’s where the sale of the Fairfield Halls could come in.
“When we’ve met with the improvement and assurance panel,” Patel, a Green Party councillor, told the Croydon Insider podcast, “that are guiding Croydon, supposedly, through this financial mismanagement, they have mentioned the Fairfield Halls as an asset that they are keen the council disposes of.”
Selling the family silver: Cllr Ria Patel opposes the idea of selling the Fairfield Halls
Councillor Patel described the idea of selling the Fairfield Halls as “very, very poor”.
Patel highlighted that some of the properties being sold by the council, including the Fairfield Halls, lack much of a profit motive for potential buyers – which drives down the asking price and reduces the returns for the cash-strapped council.
“Ultimately, we really shouldn’t be selling our assets,” Patel said.
“Once we sell our assets, we’re losing council properties that would be really difficult to buy back if ever we want to provide real services to Croydon residents.”
The council’s track record for achieving “best value” on recent asset sales is, in any case, pretty poor, with valuable bits of real estate – such as the Croydon Park Hotel site and a former Croydon College site adjoining the Fairfield Halls – among those to have been sold for below market price or development value.
The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson confirmed to Inside Croydon this week that Croydon Mayor Jason Perry had indeed finally got to meet Jim McMahon, the local government minister. The meeting was held on January 27.
“The meeting was part of regular ministerial business as part of the aim by this government to provide a more supportive approach to stewardship for local councils,” the spokesperson said, adding that the meeting had also been attended by the improvement and assurance panel – the latest demonstration that Croydon’s Mayor is in office, just not in power.
Locally listed: the C20 Society says it will be keeping a close watch on the Fairfield Halls’ future
“The improvement and assurance panel continues to work with the council to identify suitable properties to include in the asset disposal programme,” the spokesperson said.
“Developing a viable and sustainable business plan for Fairfield Halls that delivers best value to the residents of Croydon is part of the agreed exit strategy, which the council, in conjunction with the panel, continues to progress.”
The 20th Century Society expressed concern that a heritage asset such as the Fairfield Halls could be under threat in this manner.
“The C20 Society believes the Fairfield Halls to be an outstanding example of a mid-century modern ‘Festival of Britain’-inspired concert hall,” Oli Marshall, the society’s campaign director, told Inside Croydon.
“It’s locally listed and despite being rejected for national listing previously, it clearly merits a reassessment in due course.” Sooner rather than later, if the Halls ends up sold to a property developer.
“We’ll be closely monitoring any developments on the future of the Halls, and stand ready to make the case for saving this underappreciated ‘South Bank Centre of the suburbs’.”
Read more: Kroll Report provides no answers to £73m Fairfield fiasco
Read more: Fairfield Halls left haunted by acts from its more glorious past
Read more: Police drop all investigations into council’s financial collapse
Read more: CEO Negrini’s long campaign to shut down Inside Croydon
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Who will buy this sad vestige of its former self?
I envisage an empty echoing deteriorating behemoth calling wistfully to the empty echoing Croydon Park Hotel. I recall having fabulous times in that hotel bar before going over to the Fairfield for great entertainment…
Never More….
That’s why the smart money is on the buyer being a property developer… More tall blocks of flats!
The current method of Croydon building residential flats out of trouble has never and will never work. The debt pile is too substantial and the interest rates will barely be covered. Also, unless yr from a certain area in the world, no one wants to live in Croydon because of the gangs, anti social behaviour and crime.
You’ve missed the point. The council would not be building the flats. It would sell the site, probably waaay below market value, to a private developer who would seek to make millions in profit.
Yet again, public assets subsidising private profit
Sell baby Sell…… I got into debt once a while ago…..what did I do ? I sold all of my assets and reconciled all my spending ….. no squirrelling away. Start again. Sell baby Sell !!
The question in my mind is why should the Council who can’t seem to organise anything with their current administration apart from money wasting projects, have the right to administer such a great venue.
I’m sure people interested in bringing it to life could do a far better job and spend far less than £72m in the process. The thing which would be a disaster is if it was sold for development.
Thought experiment – what if a major events company (such as AEG Europe) bought it, and sponsored as “The O2 Fairfield Halls”? Keeping the culture in Croydon a little more permanently, but at the expense of the private sector reaping the (direct) rewards, and a slightly more commercial and less public-spirited endeavour?
What if LOST took over Fairfield Halls?
LOST was a figment of piss-poor Perry’s limited imagination
They would need to redevelop it AGAIN. AEG at least work with established, world renowned developers like Arup and Populous. Turn it into a venue that can hold 5,000+ in one room with a much bigger bar. A late licence that goes to 4 am and better sound system and it might work!
World renowned developers like Arup? Good shout, it would then probably be a certain Arup Director named Jo Negrini who would be in charge of the redevelopment!!!
I’m not expert on venues such as this but the council retaining the freehold and leasing the building to a meaningful operator who would work hard to maximise profit whilst bringing popular acts to Croydon seems an obvious starting point.
Or we could just sell it for peanuts. Grant an overseas investor the planning permission for 1000 flats and let them profit from our clueless leadership team.
He should flog them off to that well known developer Polaska, that would sort it….
Will Perry conduct the Auction?
Pompous, piss-poor, powerless, part-time Perry wouldn’t even have made a good job of re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Yes the Council have a lot to blame, but let’s not forget the company that have deemed Fairfield halls unsuccessful in the first place since 2019. How BHLive have disrupted Croydon, ironically with sheer laziness, should not be ignored. They will not care should the sale of Fairfield come true, and likely give them their get out of jail card they’ve been after. The only hope is that someone comes in and offers to take over and allow the building to be utilised to its full potential before it’s too late. Get a proper in house programming management team to look after community lets during the day and let the tours come in during the evening. Bhlive have let it operate for far too long under the desire the building will run itself and enough is enough. They must be replaced.
Although I passed by the place last week and there seemed to be a long queue for an event, most of the acts on the books are tribute soul and R&B and 70s Pop acts! Have BH Live even seen the creative opera hall events on YouTube like the Red Bull Symphonic? Red Bull books the most popular rappers, dance and neo soul singers to sing their hits over orchestras to young audiences. It’s a great way of getting young men and women to appreciate classical performers and a new way of hearing Rap, Soul and Dance music!
The family jewels have already been sold with the Riesco gallery, the council’s once excellent arts output was destroyed when they got rid of the two marvellous individuals who were basically running it, why would we expect a council with so little imagination and such complete disdain for anything that even hints at making our lives a little bit brighter to give a flying monkeys for the Fairfield. They are so disinterested that it was open for 3 months before I even realised it, such was the lack of advertisements for anything happening there. The website is appalling, the bar shuts before the end of shows, it’s a car-crash, but if you were of a cynical bent, rather than just putting it down to the usual staggering incompetence, it could feel like another deliberate car-crash, much like the Croydon Park Hotel debacle. Block of shoddy flats, anyone?
Maybe Greystar will buy it and build a sequel to Ten Degrees. George Street can then become its final form, a wind tunnel. Wind turbines can then be built, it could have been cheap energy for Croydon but it turns out they were sold off by the council for 10p to the lowest bidder.
In all seriousness, this news is completely demoralising, although I suppose it could be entertaining if a property developer bought it and the theatre suddenly became listed, more entertaining than most of the programme put on at Fairfield Halls anyway…
My grandparents saw the Fairfield Halls built and were proud of what it said about Croydon and the town’s ambitions. They supported it. My God, what would they think of this great betrayal?
I cannot understand why in Croydon, a town that should have small city status with 390,000 people, does not have at least 2 venues with the capacity of 5,000-10,000 each to handle regular Pop concerts, conventions, exhibitions, seminars, etc. Brixton has had the 5,000 capacity Brixton Academy since the 1930s and amazing singers and bands have passed through. Yet Croydon doesn’t have a modern music venue or arena. Why didn’t a promoter redevelop the Toys R Us when it closed in 2018? It could have been an out of town venue with plenty of built in parking. Or the DC Prologis Park on Beddington Lane, a 150,000 square foot space that could hold an indoor arena? Our idiotic council staff seem to have no cultural ministers or councillors with the skills to negotiate or draw investors and promoters in to build any places of entertainment or nightlife. SMH.
If we don’t do something fast I fear someone like MSG will come along and dump a giant Sphere in Croydon, sure we would have a 20000 seat capacity stadium but we would have to wear sunglasses 24/7 like Bono who would also end up having a residency in Croydon. We would go from poor mans Bronx to poor mans Manhattan to poor mans Vegas, one day we’ll get our own identity.
Don’t be silly, MSG wanted to build the Sphere in central London and that was abandoned. It doesn’t suit anywhere in the UK, especially London. However, Croydon needs a selection of 5,000-10,000 capacity entertainment venues integrated with restaurants, cafes, bars, play centres and creative hubs for young people. Affordable entertainment and places to keep teenagers occupied is essential for a healthy town.
Our town is “sick” because too many teenagers have idle hands and energy and nowhere to be constructive and creative. Too many middle-class families and single people are moving out of town, because they don’t feel safe here.
In order to make this town better, the first priorities are to clean up the rubbish: street, flytipping, graffiti, get the homeless & addicts into secure facilities and start restricting certain businesses that want to open like vape shops, fast food outs, betting shops, etc.
I was being silly, lighten up! The good people of Stratford will be confused that you’ve suddenly moved them to central London, it’s quicker to get to central London from Croydon than Stratford. I don’t think you realise how close that project was to happening and if they had chosen Croydon it wouldn’t have been surprising if it had of happened.
Although it is important for things to be clean, your priorities are very surface level. Until the big things are done, as in we have a thriving town centre, things like clean ups become a never ending sticking plaster because the reality is, poverty attracts poverty. We must prioritise the big things, having a proper plan for Whitgift Centre, Nestle, St George’s Walk, East Croydon station etc and get those actioned and that produces the desired knock on effects.
Much of the focus of the decline of Croydon town centre has, rightly, been on the Whitgift Centre. We take responsibility for that in our own reporting.
But no less important in any revival of the fortunes of Croydon must be the Nestle building and St George’s Walk, which have been standing as development wastelands for almost five years now.
Like Westfield/Whitgift, this is entirely down to private sector developers, with the council and even the government having limited powers to intervene.
It is noticeable that while Perry pals up with URW and makes encouraging noises – entirely misleadingly, but there’s an election coming – about the Whitgift Centre, he remains entirely silent on St George’s Walk and its China-based developer owners.
Well said, Perry has mentioned his monthly secret meetings with URW, not that seems to have done anything in his almost 3 years as Mayor. I don’t remember him mentioning Guangzhou R&F Properties once. I can only assume he’s not attempted to engage with them at all. Given that he recently claimed rejuvenating the town centre is his top priority, he’s been less than useless.
It would be nice to have a Mayor who fulfils their role in engaging with these companies and in return relays information back to the people of Croydon. To just be honest and say what is happening, for better or for worse and how they will tackle these complicated issues, otherwise it looks like they are doing nothing.
Wouldn’t it be great if it could be run by artists, or people who actually know how to use it properly? It’s mad that Croydon is sitting on a beautiful, under-used venue with excellent transport links across London during a time when grassroots music venues across London are being forced under!
The acts playing there currently wouldn’t make 4th rate
People aren’t going out for anything like they used, sadly. In today’s Britain we stay home instead of going to the pub, we watch social media individually and concerts alone. We don’t go out to buy the Standard … we read Inside Croydon on our smartphones. Truly, we’re in a handcart and going somewhere that’s too damn hot. PS for IC’s sarky subs – when I say ‘we’, I mean ‘people’. I do go out to the pub, taking my life in my hands walking back down Hayes Lane in the dark
This is all very interesting.
Croydon is surrounded by prosperous theatres: Wimbledon, Richmond, and Bromley – all showing excellent work.
And BHLive doesn’t just run swimming pools, it manages a well established theatre scene in Bournemouth:
http://theatresonline.net/theatres/bournemouth-theatres/bournemouth-theatres.html
The problem with Croydon Council and programming Fairfield Halls goes way back before the ghastly £70m so-called re-furb.
I think you might call it Vision Deprivation.
Not sure how many of those other regional theatres, however successful they might be, are prosperous.
And on the point of BHLive, yes they do have a performance venue in their spun-off portfolio from the south coast council, but that is not where their core experience lays.
And since a change of senior executives, their focus is certainly not the arts in Croydon.
The Fairfield Halls should be sold as the building is no longer fit for purpose. The main auditorium is too small and the theatre mediocre..
In which case, who would want to buy it?