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Playground for young and rich
• LESS than 18 months after Islington’s Lib Dems sold Finsbury Town Hall to private ballet company Urdang Ltd, its new owners have been given a licence to sell alcohol and to stage live music until 2am, six days a week and until midnight on Sundays, effectively turning this Grade II-listed building into a nightclub.
Islington’s Lib Dems made it clear, almost as soon as they took control of the council, that they would dispose of Finsbury Town Hall.
Like the more recent decision to dispose of shops in the area, the plan is not only to remove facilities that sustain a working-class community, but also to replace them with shops and venues designed to exclude all but a wealthy clientele.
The need to raise cash was never an issue in the Lib Dems’ decision to sell the town hall, a building whose construction had been financed by Clerkenwell residents through subscriptions.
After all, a previous community-focused version of EC1 New Deal had offered to buy the building, supporting the community’s desire to retain it for the use and benefit of residents. They even paid for a study to show the building could be run as residents wanted.
Opposition to the sale, first to Berkeley Homes, which was to convert the building into luxury flats (a failed deal), and then to Urdang, was recorded in petitions of thousands across Finsbury.
As the sale went through, public accounts showed that Urdang was not a wealthy company and questions were raised about how it would keep up payments on the basis of running a supposedly community- friendly dance school, apparently waiting to make famous the future Billy Elliots of neighbouring council estates.
The plans hatched two years ago with Islington’s Lib Dems are now exposed.
None of the surrounding council estates has ever received a leaflet about Urdang, let alone been invited to access what goes on in Finsbury Town Hall.
The IWCA has been told the cost of hiring the hall is some £1,800 per event and that it is almost completely booked up until Christmas, for mostly corporate events.
The planned nightclub would satisfy Urdang’s need for cash and the Lib Dems’ determination to change Finsbury from a living, working-class community to a playground for the young, wealthy and transient, but it won’t happen without a fight.
SARAH NASH
IWCA (Independent Working Class Association) |
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