Victoria Hall Friends Group Queries Bill from Council

Fees increased despite venue only being open for half the year

Fenced-off side entrance to the Victoria Hall which along with Ealing Town Hall has been closed since September 2023.. Picture: Roger Green

January 17, 2025

The Friends of Victoria Hall (FoVH) says it is perplexed by fees that are being charged by Ealing Council to the Trust that is responsible for the venue.

At a recent meeting of the Victoria Trust Advisory Committee, council officers presented figures which showed that for the year ending 31 March 2024, with the Hall closed for six months, the Victoria Hall Trust charity was charged 13.1% more for ‘management and operations’ than when it was operating for the whole of the previous year. The Trust was charged a total of £236,958 for management and administration of hall hire (£38,678) along with operational premises costs (£198,280).

The hall was shut in September 2023 along with the Town Hall with the council citing unspecified ‘health and safety’ grounds, which meant that the Trust lost all income from hiring out the venue.

The Friends say that the bill was presented without any explanation and represents a further deterioration in the relationship between the group and the council which has been fraught since plans to incorporate it into a luxury hotel scheme in 2016.

The council says that FoVH has misunderstood the invoices it has received and it is mistaken in believing it has been charged more for the hall closed than open.

A spokesperson said, "The figures presented at the Victoria Trust Advisory Committee on 8 January, for 2022–23 reflect a 9-month period whereas the 2023-24 figures are for a 12-month period. This is simply due to the Trust moving to a different reporting system during the financial year 2022-23. The full year costs for April 2022 to March 2023 are £266,010 and April 2023 to March 2024 are £236,958. Whilst the Town Hall has been closed because of serious health and safety concerns, there has been a reduction in running costs of £29,052. It’s also important to note that the Town Hall closed in October 2023 and so remained open for approximately half of the year being reported".

This has been damaged further by what the Friends claim is a failure by the council to hold an open and unrestricted process to recruit the two new independent members for a new Advisory Committee. The Charity Commission has mandated this to ensure that councillors would be in the minority. The Friends accuse the council of approaching a limited list of people ‘on its book’s’, for example school governors and others who may not be familiar with the management of charitable trusts. FoVH believes that the Victoria Hall Trust Advisory Committee needs properly independent members with a demonstrable interest in the Hall as a centre for community activities and they want candidates drawn from those who previously used the hall.

The Friends are calling for anyone in the Borough who’s concerned about the future of the hall to apply for one of the two posts. All they need to do is to email an expression of interest (maximum two pages of A4) by 5pm on 27 January to the email address contained in the Council’s information pack about the role, which contains more details of the role and can be downloaded from here.

Regarding the alledged lack of transparency on recruitment, an Ealing Council spokesperson said, “The Victoria Trust Advisory Committee met at the earliest opportunity on 8 January 2025 to agree a recruitment campaign for the two new independent members. The committee unanimously agreed to approach a large pool of independent representatives who already volunteer for the council since this should hopefully enable two new independent members to be appointed to the committee at the next Full Council meeting on 4 March. Approaching this pool of people speeds up the recruitment process as the trust will have to do less due diligence and will already know candidates have a proven track record of volunteering their time to sit on panels and bodies that have a real impact on the borough.

“The committee will be responsible for interviewing the candidates and will only appoint on merit. At this stage, any applications received that are not from the list cannot be considered. The committee’s membership is currently 3 elected members and 3 independent members, all of whom respect the judgement and findings of the Tribunal in this matter which found the plans to redevelop Ealing Town Hall to be the only viable option.”

In a recent move Ealing Civic Society has applied to Historic England to have Ealing Town Hall and the Victoria Hall added to the Buildings At Risk Register.

Roger Green, chair of the Friends of the Victoria Hall (FoVH) said, “What a farce! How can the Hall possibly cost more closed than when it was open? No wonder Council officials were unable to explain this at last week’s meeting.”

In another recent development the Charity Commission is trying to have thrown out of court the latest appeal against its Victoria Hall Scheme.

Mr Green commented, “This makes the Commission look even less like its function is to protect charity beneficiaries and has resulted in us having to launch yet another fundraising drive to cover the legal costs that they’ve pushed us into.

“Our crowdfunding page can be found here.””