Will Haringey Council flog off Hornsey Town Hall and use the proceeds for their projects in the east of the borough? Or will the residents of Crouch End and Hornsey rise up and win the Town Hall for their dream facilities for a better community? The battle is on and I observed the latest meeting of Hornsey Town Hall advisory panel (set up under pressure by Haringey Council to advise on the future of the site) and thought you might like to know what was discussed.

We had a presentation from the ex-founding director of the charitable trust for Shoreditch Town Hall. A trust has been suggested by many people (including both Crouch End for People and the Liberal Democrat councillors on Haringey Council) as the best way forward for the site, so it was interesting to hear how a trust has operated in a similar situation elsewhere. The Shoreditch trust was founded after Hackney Council commissioned a report (with extensive community consultation) which recommended the creation of an arms-length, stand-alone trust for the site. So the trust was born and the site was handed over in stages – first for a 3-year lease, with an option for a further 99-years if the trust got going successfully. Importantly the lease was “non-assignable” – which meant the site couldn’t be passed on to anyone else (i.e. the site couldn’t fall into commercial hands), and if the trust failed it reverted to the council.

The possible parallels with Haringey are quite striking (yes, the Shoreditch site even had a car park! It is a 39,000 square foot listed building with two large halls). To give the trust a chance to get going, Hackney Council gave it money for the first three years equal to what it would have otherwise spent on the site – though the trust had to become self-sustaining in the long run. To help do this, some of the site was sold off, which generated the money to restore the rest of it. The opening is due in December.

Interestingly, the opening is in stages. There will be lots of community facilities for arts, performance etc. They have been innovative with the commercial ventures of hiring the hall for weddings, tea dances, artists in residence and local events. A lot of effort has been spent ensuring engagement with the local community so that everyone feels they have a stake. Staging the development of the site and their aspirations has let them grow with the project. One key point made was that the skills needs of Board of Trustees was paramount – and they actually conducted a skills audit and hired a recruitment agency in order to ensure they had what they needed on the board.

The general idea of a trust for the Hornsey Town Hall site was strongly supported at the meeting. There was a report tabled by commercial consultants, which outlined possible options for the site – basically assigning ball-park costs to ideas which had been discussed at earlier meetings of the panel. The range included a theatre, mini-plex cinema, piazza, bar restaurant, citizens’ advice, office space, health centre, skate board park, car park, residential use – in all or any combinations thereof. Clearly one of the main issues to address will be whether to sell off (or otherwise use commercially) parts of the site to help generate money for developing the rest of it for the community.

Personally, in an ideal world I would rather see the site developed without having to do this – but realistically I am sceptical that the money will be available to make the best use of the site for the community unless some money is raised from commercial sources. One possibility might be to generate rental income from some of the old council office space, which my colleague Dave Winskill (Crouch End councillor) has been pressing to get properly examined. The figures on this will need to be examined closely! And any money raised must go back into the site rather than being siphoned off by Haringey Council for elsewhere.

Discussion around the car park centred on ensuring that some parking was available to support the site, for disabled parking and for servicing the projects. There was also a call to ensure that transport policies should begin to be focused upon ideas such as – if you bought a theatre ticket the ticket would also enable you to take the bus to the site. Transport capacity on local buses serving the site would need increasing.