Roundhouse: gamble behind ‘slash and burn’ option

LAST week’s public meeting welcomed enthusiastically Councillor Paul Convery’s commitment that the council would ensure Highbury Roundhouse is rebuilt on its current site, but remained unconvinced by his decision to demolish it. 

Cllr Convery appeared to be suggesting the council’s commitment to knocking down the old “bottleworks” building is based on money it doesn’t have, and the spending of which would leave nothing useful for the community but a flat, vacant site. 

This “slash and burn” option would then call for a new building to be built, at considerably higher cost than the Roundhouse’s preferred refurbishment option, and again with money the council doesn’t have. 

Success of such an approach depends either on the Roundhouse obtaining the funding it needs from the Lottery, or on the new centre being provided by a housing association, as part of a redevelopment of the site. 

The first of these is clearly a gamble; the second simply doesn’t feel like it stacks up, without either cramming on more homes than the site can comfortably bear, or including a higher proportion of private housing than the council is likely to find acceptable. 

If the Roundhouse is right – that stabilising, strengthening and refurbishing the existing building is significantly cheaper than demolishing it and building something new – then this approach seems far more likely to be achievable.  

We call on Cllr Convery to review his decision as a matter of urgency.

CAROLINE RUSSELL
Islington Green Party

• THE trustees and the community regard the present Roundhouse building as a bargaining counter in negotiations with the council and, potentially, with developers. As the council seems irrevocably to have taken the decision to demolish, they fear losing any influence in the outcome of negotiations and (whether with justification or not) are unwilling to place all their trust in the council’s goodwill.

Instead of the council granting the trustees a conditional lease contingent on the success of the bid for Lottery funding, the council could grant the trustees an unconditional lease of the land on which the present building stands, which would give them a stake in the site and an automatic seat at any negotiating table with the council and developers.  

CLLR JOHN GILBERT 
Lib Dem, Highbury East 

Published: 8 July, 2011