Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
'People's Palace' Plan Scorned
This from Elizabeth Pears at the Haringey Independent, 23rd March 2008:
A vision to re-brand Alexandra Palace as a cultural landmark and community hub has been scorned by the board of trustees.
Pressure group Save Ally Pally, which opposes Haringey Council's plan to sell the historic building to a private developer, has come up with a plan which it believes will safeguard the Palace's future.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the campaign group gave a presentation called The Way Forward, outlining its view of how the Palace should be run.
A spokeswoman for the group said: "It was a really inspiring night and we all felt it. What we have put forward is a vision for a real people's Palace and something really special for the community and Britain as a whole.
"Our plans, although still a work in progress, demonstrate it can work and how easy it would be to set up."
Under the proposals the current board of trustees, largely made up of councillors, would be replaced with a non-political charity called the People's Palace Trust - taking the burden of maintaining it away from the council.
The group's vision also includes a full restoration of the old Victorian theatre and television studios to become a museum with a media centre for educational use.
The plans will also include hot air balloon rides and getting the ice rink brought up to Olympic standard ahead of the 2012 Games.
But the board of trustees remain unconvinced and dismissed the idea as "unrealistic".
A Palace spokeswoman said: "Save Ally Pally's un-costed proposal to allow self-appointed representatives to take over the management of the Palace, while asking Haringey Council to fund them, is naïve.
"The Palace needs a realistic redevelopment investment strategy to the benefit of the whole community - rather than using valuable resources to meet the demands of a single-interest group that has waged a media campaign that will only undermine its future."
Save Ally Pally said it would raise the money to maintain the Palace by introducing membership fixed at £10 a month, and securing funding from charitable organisations, private donations and grants. It also wants to bid for Alexandra Palace to be registered as a UNESCO site.
The group also said £1 million should be donated by Haringey Council for the first two years of the new lease to help with running costs.
The council currently pays an average £1.5m a year to make up the shortfall of Palace accounts.
A vision to re-brand Alexandra Palace as a cultural landmark and community hub has been scorned by the board of trustees.
Pressure group Save Ally Pally, which opposes Haringey Council's plan to sell the historic building to a private developer, has come up with a plan which it believes will safeguard the Palace's future.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the campaign group gave a presentation called The Way Forward, outlining its view of how the Palace should be run.
A spokeswoman for the group said: "It was a really inspiring night and we all felt it. What we have put forward is a vision for a real people's Palace and something really special for the community and Britain as a whole.
"Our plans, although still a work in progress, demonstrate it can work and how easy it would be to set up."
Under the proposals the current board of trustees, largely made up of councillors, would be replaced with a non-political charity called the People's Palace Trust - taking the burden of maintaining it away from the council.
The group's vision also includes a full restoration of the old Victorian theatre and television studios to become a museum with a media centre for educational use.
The plans will also include hot air balloon rides and getting the ice rink brought up to Olympic standard ahead of the 2012 Games.
But the board of trustees remain unconvinced and dismissed the idea as "unrealistic".
A Palace spokeswoman said: "Save Ally Pally's un-costed proposal to allow self-appointed representatives to take over the management of the Palace, while asking Haringey Council to fund them, is naïve.
"The Palace needs a realistic redevelopment investment strategy to the benefit of the whole community - rather than using valuable resources to meet the demands of a single-interest group that has waged a media campaign that will only undermine its future."
Save Ally Pally said it would raise the money to maintain the Palace by introducing membership fixed at £10 a month, and securing funding from charitable organisations, private donations and grants. It also wants to bid for Alexandra Palace to be registered as a UNESCO site.
The group also said £1 million should be donated by Haringey Council for the first two years of the new lease to help with running costs.
The council currently pays an average £1.5m a year to make up the shortfall of Palace accounts.
Tags for Forum Posts: Ally Pally, alexandrapalace, saveallypally
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Firstly, thank you Hugh for reproducing this article, even if I find it somewhat depressing.
At least it might stir further interest in the subject. Others and I have put a lot of effort into opposing the sale to Firoka and we believe it behoves us to offer an alternative. The Council management of our charity has been less than a stellar success and the waste of money is truly staggering. If AP is handed to a property developer it will be the biggest rip-off of public assets in Borough history. The points raised in this article are too numerous to address comprehensively in a community notice board. But I would offer these points:
The presentation by the Save Ally Pally team trio was made to the Alexandra Palace Statutory Advisory Committee. This has statutory powers and in theory, is independent of the Board. The Consultative Committee is another committee supposed to be independent of the Board and which is routinely disregarded by the Board. The Advisory Committee's advice is normally "noted" and promptly ignored. I have yet to be convinced that these committees are not either fronts for the Council or largely subverted and neutered by the Council.
Who is the so-called Palace "spokeswoman" who has responded to our proposals? Is this in fact an employee from the PR company Lexington Communications, which our Charity employs at our great cost to convince us? The same PR company with party political links to the majority group of the Council? A PR company that has already had more than £182,000 of our charity's cash and which has its snout in the trough for lots more if they are allowed to keep flogging the dead-horse Firoka deal.
Over 800 have signed the petition opposing the deal to give our Palace to a property developer and the numbers are growing.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveAllyPally
Best wishes,
Clive. - Attachments:
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Think I read something about SAP's proposal to launch ballon rides from Ally Park. Is this allowed within the M25? Is this done anywhere else within London?
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