SALISBURY CITY HALL - LATEST NEWS
Some of those who signed this petition may have picked up on the fact that I have been pre-occupied with re-opening Salisbury City Hall recently.
I have been working behind the scenes with Anne Trevett, who was instrumental in getting St John's Church in Lower Bemerton converted into a successful community centre.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a letter, published in the Salisbury Journal, calling on local people with professional expertise of the entertainments industry to help get Salisbury City Hall re-opened ASAP.
My thinking was that if Wiltshire Council start kicking their heals again, or no commercial bidders come forward (which could still happen), then we will be another year down with the City Hall still black.
I was surprised by the significant number of people who responded to that appeal and come forward to help. Some of them have lots of professional experience and live in the City. They all feel as passionately as I do.
On Monday night that group got together for the first time at a meeting convened by Anne Trewvett. Here is the press release. I think it is good news and gives us all hope.
PRESS RELEASE ON CITY HALL
A group of people from across Salisbury concerned about the future of City Hall has met to consider how they can best help to ensure that the voices and talents of people in the City can best be heard in the current exercise by Wiltshire Council to find a commercial operator to run City Hall.
“We are very fortunate in the talents of people living in the City” said Anne Trevett, Chair of Safer and Supportive Salisbury CIO, who helped convene the meeting.
“Every single person involved is a Salisbury resident: it includes people with very considerable experience in the entertainment and music industry locally, nationally and even internationally, and cross party representatives from both Wiltshire Councillors and City Councillors, in addition to people representing Salisbury’s vibrant community groups.
"Several have been active in running community led venues, one member has a national role in helping local authorities develop their commercial activities.”
"Wiltshire Council is currently inviting applications from people interested in running City Hall as an entertainment venue. At this stage the new group, calling itself Friends of Salisbury’s City Hall, is not planning to itself bid to run City Hall but wants to work with anyone and everyone involved in this process to help reflect the passionate views of Salisbury residents and to contribute to the commercial success of City Hall as well as giving space to grass roots community events and activities.
“We share the Council’s hope that a successful commercial operator will come forward”, said Cllr Jeremy Nettle, who chaired the first meeting of the group, “and we stand ready to support the Council in any way we can relating to our community to achieve their objects.
"But if the market exercise fails we shall be looking to see if we can intervene more directly. After all we have the recent experience in the City of a community group converting St John’s Church in Lower Bemerton to a very successful community centre that has achieved national recognition.
"We all went to see our City Hall return to being a centre for creative and community activities at the heart of the City.”