| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Waterman's | |
| Posted by: | Guy Lambert | |
| Date/Time: | 06/02/26 22:33:00 |
| The proposal does include provision (up to a point) for an arts centre. It is reduced in size from the previous planning approval: the council say it's because there is no demand for a cinema because Brentford already has one. The real reason is that there is not enough money in the deal to provide a centre at the level previously approved. The provision for an arts centre began with a budget of £20M and a large theatre, because Arts Counicl England wanted to provide a 500 seater theatre to accommodate a West London Dance centre. That was cut early on, because the ACE had no money for it and the developer said there was only £10M budget. Then that became £7M because the developer had already bought the site and was incurring interest costs. At that stage, a plan for a reduced size arts centre with cinemas, theatre, cafe, rehearsal rooms etc was included in the costing. Then it all fell apart, partly because Michael Gove called for a public enquiry. The public enquiry agreed with what had been agreed earlier by Hounslow but a few years, legal costs and more interest costs had accrued. Then we had Brexit (construction costs went much higher and many skilled builders left the UK) Truss (interest costs went through the roof) new building regs post Grenfell meant extra staircases had to be provided. So the proosal now is for a smaller empty shell for the arts centre and the council will (if all goes to plan) call on arts providers to bid for the design, construction and operation of an arts centre. There is also when I last looked a large deficit in the finances - I have heard £50M shortfall mentioned. Whether there is a realistic prospect of any of this being built is beyond my ken. We were told in 2024 that there would be spades in the ground last summer. Now the story is that there 'could' be spades late this year. In reality, I am sceptical about that unless there is a magic money tree somewhere in national or local government. But of course schemes like this are very sensitive to interest rates (likely to fall) building cost inflation (anybody's guess) and what happens to house prices (ditto) |