Ealing Arts Centre

This petition to Ealing Councillors is designed to demonstrate to them:

- the depth and breadth of support for the idea of setting up an Arts Centre in Ealing Town Hall;

- Ealing Arts Centre’s capacity to fill the enormous gap in arts provision in a Borough of over 330,000 people which can only boast of:
One small theatre
One cinema in North Acton
One Art Gallery in Pitzhanger House & Gallery
Four dance studios.
All other venues are general halls for hire (Town Hall, Community Centres, Church Halls).

- that the £570,000 generated from the sale of a painting last year should be spent on the arts, especially as it is ring-fenced for that purpose

- that this small amount of money will be efficiently spent setting up an Arts Centre in Ealing Town Hall because it will provide badly needed arts facilities for art, music, dance and the crafts, provide properly equipped performance spaces and provide opportunities for all our residents to get involved.

- Ealing Town Hall is currently costing the residents £1.7m (net) each year and the Arts Centre will help reduce this deficit by bringing much more floor space into use and greatly increasing the usage and therefore the income.

A professional business plan has been written and presented to Council showing the soundness of the project. Councillors have so far not shown a positive response to the proposal, stating they are concerned about impending cuts. However, we argue that the windfall money from the sale of the painting was ring-fenced and should be spent on a much-needed arts centre to develop arts and leisure provision for residents. The Ealing Labour Party manifesto (2010) included the statement: “Explore the possibility of establishing a permanent arts centre in Ealing.”

Ealing Arts Centre, a social enterprise company run by and for residents, has done the exploration. The Council now needs to provide the seed-corn finance. After that the Arts Centre will be self-financing.
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