Games’ analysis of Ally Pally Planning Application

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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on January 9, 2015 at 12:52

Mr Games's interesting paper resonates at many points with my own feelings when I visited the exhibition last year and was invited to complete a questionnaire.

Ally Pally has been one of North London’s "insoluble opportunities" for a very long time and I am sure I am not alone in having hoped that persuasive proposals would eventually emerge to make something out of it that we could be proud of.  In recent years, parts of the building have been much improved which makes it less of an embarrassment to show to visitors but I have found few occasions to go inside other than to gawp.  Always in the back of my mind was the thought that this huge building (much of which is still out of use and dilapidated) was simply too big to attract enough people to justify its maintenance.  The fact that this seems to have been the case even before the palace lost its own railway line, suggests that finding an economically sustainable solution must include not only clever new attractions but also a dramatic improvement in public transport to the doors of the palace.  This building is so large (twice as long as Tate Modern) that it has three bus stops, one at each end and one in the middle.  One solitary bus service (W3), however good it is, will not do the business.

I am very glad to see that the future of Ally Pally is being considered seriously and I would like the next big step to be both properly considered and decisive.  Given the long history of the place, I don’t think that undue haste is justified, it is more important to get a good result.

I am not convinced that Ally Pally’s cultural or historic importance is very great and wouldn’t want the future of the place to hinge on a dispute about the importance of Victorian theatre which might have justly sunk without trace from our awareness.  Perhaps, to quote Mr Games’s words, “our embarrassment about what is now seen as its over-reliance on vulgarity, grotesquerie and melodrama” was justified.  I don’t believe that restoring Ally Pally’s beautiful old theatre would lead to crowds attending replica Victorian performances.  If this beautiful space is to be restored, which I hope it will be, other uses for it will be needed.  I can’t take seriously suggested parallels with Wanamaker’s Globe and Playhouse.

As something of a technologist myself, I agree that incorporating a lot of the latest wizardry sets the place up for early obsolescence.  I would rather see the space, and the people within it, speak for themselves and use technology unobtrusivley only to serve that end.

To summarise, I broadly support Mr Games and, if I can find a way, will lend direct support to the following points that he has very helpfully made.

1. that the application should be sent back for more work.
2. that new road and access infrastructure be incorporated into the scheme.
3. that the applicant rethink, redesign and relocate “The BBC Experience”.
4. that creative consultation be carried out, not sham consultation in which the public merely approves designs already completed.
5. that the period for public scrutiny be raised from two to six months.

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