About Our Campaign
The Victoria Hall, central Ealing’s largest indoor community space, is in danger of falling under private control and lost to the community.
Before you read on, support our fight to save the Victoria Hall for the community, by donating to our appeal:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-victoria-hall/
A group of local community organisations has joined together to form the Friends of the Victoria Hall (FoVH), a not-for-profit voluntary body (HMRC charity reference number is ZD04507) whose aim is to stop Ealing Council ‘gifting’ Victoria Hall to a hotel company and to campaign to save the building for the community as a performing arts, exhibition and meeting space.
The Victoria Hall is the large public hall built in 1888 next to Ealing Town Hall with money raised by public subscription. Below it is a second space known as the Prince's Hall. The halls are owned by the Victoria Hall Trust, formed in 1893 to ensure that they would be run for the benefit of the local community.
Ealing Council wants to dispose of the halls to a hotel developer on a 250-year lease so that they can become part of a luxury hotel.
There are much better ideas for the building than this, as can be seen from the video made by the Campaign for an Ealing Performance and Arts Centre (CEPAC) showing what how the 19th century Hall could easily be adapted to serve the 21st century residents of Ealing: https://vimeo.com/457474916
Under the Ealing Council hotel scheme, use of a cut-down Victoria Hall would be available to community groups only on a restricted basis, with price increases controlled for the first 10 of the 250 years. And the conversion into a hotel would render the Hall unusable for the large community events that have taken place there for more than a century.
With the borough’s increasingly diverse population due to grow by 25% over the next 10 years, the Trust’s role is as necessary as it has ever been. Loss of the Victoria Hall and its ancillary rooms as places for meetings and gatherings would deprive the Borough of Ealing of a key facility that should be bringing together Ealing’s new residents and helping them to integrate with the existing community.
The provisions of the 1893 Victoria Hall Trust do not allow the Council to dispose of the halls, so Ealing Council has had to apply to the Charity Commission to change the rules so that it can take control of the Trust’s property.
In December 2019, the Charity Commission published the draft of a ‘Scheme’ that would clear the way for this to happen, subject to the result of the public consultation that ended on 7 January 2020. We challenged the first version of this Scheme with a devastating 40-page legal critique of its numerous flaws.
Following the consultation, in April 2020 the Commission published a Review of of the the draft Scheme and called for the Council to make a large number of changes. Its response - highly unsatisfactory in our view - was submitted on 24 November 2020.
Shortly afterwards, FoVH wrote to the Commission to express our concern that not only does the Council propose to ignore most of the recommendations of the April Review, but its response contains some significant errors of fact. We pointed out that the extent and value of the Trust property had been understated and we noted that many local groups would be priced out of the halls that were built for their benefit.
On 22 March 2021 the Charity Commission published what it ruled would be the final draft of the Scheme for the Victoria Hall Trust.
The most series things wrong with this are:
On 23 April 2021 two local residents on behalf of the Friends of the Victoria Hall lodged an court appeal against the draft Scheme with the Charity Tribunal. The first hearing of the case occurred on 10 May 2022. The main court proceedings, after a number of delays took place between 20 and 22 February 2023. The Tribunal decision is expected later in 2023 with a revised Scheme produced in the first quarter of 2024. See our Chronology for more details.
We're supporting legal action at the Charity Tribunal to prevent it.
Show your support by making a donation towards legal fees:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-victoria-hall/
Stay informed by signing up to receive our email news: https://mailchi.mp/c14d009a6ffe/vhfriends
The local video news outlet Exposurebox has made three excellent videos about the Victoria Hall saga. Most recent first, they are:
https://exposurebox.com/save-victoria-hall-2021/
https://exposurebox.com/save_victoria_hall_update/
https://exposurebox.com/save-victoria-hall/
Other videos about the Hall are listed here.
And our campaign has been making the news. Take a look!
Before you read on, support our fight to save the Victoria Hall for the community, by donating to our appeal:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-victoria-hall/
A group of local community organisations has joined together to form the Friends of the Victoria Hall (FoVH), a not-for-profit voluntary body (HMRC charity reference number is ZD04507) whose aim is to stop Ealing Council ‘gifting’ Victoria Hall to a hotel company and to campaign to save the building for the community as a performing arts, exhibition and meeting space.
The Victoria Hall is the large public hall built in 1888 next to Ealing Town Hall with money raised by public subscription. Below it is a second space known as the Prince's Hall. The halls are owned by the Victoria Hall Trust, formed in 1893 to ensure that they would be run for the benefit of the local community.
Ealing Council wants to dispose of the halls to a hotel developer on a 250-year lease so that they can become part of a luxury hotel.
There are much better ideas for the building than this, as can be seen from the video made by the Campaign for an Ealing Performance and Arts Centre (CEPAC) showing what how the 19th century Hall could easily be adapted to serve the 21st century residents of Ealing: https://vimeo.com/457474916
Under the Ealing Council hotel scheme, use of a cut-down Victoria Hall would be available to community groups only on a restricted basis, with price increases controlled for the first 10 of the 250 years. And the conversion into a hotel would render the Hall unusable for the large community events that have taken place there for more than a century.
With the borough’s increasingly diverse population due to grow by 25% over the next 10 years, the Trust’s role is as necessary as it has ever been. Loss of the Victoria Hall and its ancillary rooms as places for meetings and gatherings would deprive the Borough of Ealing of a key facility that should be bringing together Ealing’s new residents and helping them to integrate with the existing community.
The provisions of the 1893 Victoria Hall Trust do not allow the Council to dispose of the halls, so Ealing Council has had to apply to the Charity Commission to change the rules so that it can take control of the Trust’s property.
In December 2019, the Charity Commission published the draft of a ‘Scheme’ that would clear the way for this to happen, subject to the result of the public consultation that ended on 7 January 2020. We challenged the first version of this Scheme with a devastating 40-page legal critique of its numerous flaws.
Following the consultation, in April 2020 the Commission published a Review of of the the draft Scheme and called for the Council to make a large number of changes. Its response - highly unsatisfactory in our view - was submitted on 24 November 2020.
Shortly afterwards, FoVH wrote to the Commission to express our concern that not only does the Council propose to ignore most of the recommendations of the April Review, but its response contains some significant errors of fact. We pointed out that the extent and value of the Trust property had been understated and we noted that many local groups would be priced out of the halls that were built for their benefit.
On 22 March 2021 the Charity Commission published what it ruled would be the final draft of the Scheme for the Victoria Hall Trust.
The most series things wrong with this are:
- years of poor management by Ealing Council have conspired to support the bogus claim that the Trust is not sustainable;
- the way the Scheme fails to properly deal with the clear conflict of interest between the Council and the Trust;
- the true extent of the Trust’s property has never been properly identified and is being under-represented with the result that the Trust will be short-changed if the Council's transaction is allowed to proceed
- the way the ‘Community Use Protocol’ will result in a demonstrable major loss of amenity to the Trust beneficiaries – the people of Ealing.
On 23 April 2021 two local residents on behalf of the Friends of the Victoria Hall lodged an court appeal against the draft Scheme with the Charity Tribunal. The first hearing of the case occurred on 10 May 2022. The main court proceedings, after a number of delays took place between 20 and 22 February 2023. The Tribunal decision is expected later in 2023 with a revised Scheme produced in the first quarter of 2024. See our Chronology for more details.
We're supporting legal action at the Charity Tribunal to prevent it.
Show your support by making a donation towards legal fees:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-victoria-hall/
Stay informed by signing up to receive our email news: https://mailchi.mp/c14d009a6ffe/vhfriends
The local video news outlet Exposurebox has made three excellent videos about the Victoria Hall saga. Most recent first, they are:
https://exposurebox.com/save-victoria-hall-2021/
https://exposurebox.com/save_victoria_hall_update/
https://exposurebox.com/save-victoria-hall/
Other videos about the Hall are listed here.
And our campaign has been making the news. Take a look!
