Author: Sarah Wiseman

As many of you know, Haringey Council (LBH) is about to start the formal procurement process to find a developer for the Hornsey Town Hall site. This complex process is governed by strict EU rules and is very tightly regulated. The tender will be published on Delta-eSourcing.com, the recognised site for public sector tenders.

The Trust has entered into a legal agreement with LBH in order to be a member of the panel that will evaluate developer/operator proposals for long-term, sustainable community use at Hornsey Town Hall. All bids have to be considered and scored equally. We’ve also made sure the Council has contacted all those groups that have expressed interest in the Town Hall to ensure that their details are made available to prospective bidders as part of the tender documents.

Rigorous selection process

All bidders will be asked to confirm that they will meet at the very least LBH’s minimum requirements for community access and use but, crucially, bidders will score more – and are asked to provide specific information – for enhanced community use, i.e. beyond the minimum requirements. They will be asked to provide proposals that facilitate cultural, community and other activities in the Town Hall that meet our stated aspirations for the building. We also want to hear about how often they would propose to make this space available, how they see the management and governance of community use and how they will ensure its long term viability.

No one should be under any illusion about the rigour of the procurement process. This needs to tie in, of course, with the restoration of the building that will take it off the At Risk Register and make it fit-for-purpose in the 21st century so that the full potential of HTH can be realised.

To do that, it’s estimated that it will cost at least £10 million. That money will come from the development of the land to the rear of the Town Hall, with the same developer taking on responsibility for both the development of the land and the necessarily high-quality refurbishment of the Town Hall. That certainly doesn’t rule out a separate operator coming in to run the Town Hall on a day-to-day basis following its refurbishment.

Next steps

So the next twelve months are crucial for the future of Hornsey Town Hall. Many in the community are questioning why we feel it’s important to work in partnership with Haringey Council. HTHCT evolved out of local passion and action over 10 years ago and the response that the Appreciation Society is able to muster today is evidence that that passion in the community has not waned in the intervening years. We’ve always believed it’s important to work with the Council in order to help influence the final outcome and find a long-term, sustainable future for the building that meets community aspirations rather than against.

But that doesn’t mean we’ve always agreed about the Council’s approach to the Town Hall. We’ve plugged and plugged away about the importance of community access and use of the Town Hall, so clearly articulated in the consultation we undertook earlier this year (http://hornsey-town-hall.org.uk/index.php/consultation/).

Like everyone else campaigning for the Town Hall, we’re driven by the need to find a viable creative, ambitious solution that works for everyone, not just the people of Crouch End but the whole of Haringey and beyond.

This post contains the text of our newsletter sent 23rd October 2015

We were very sorry to hear that Judy Bax died on 18th August. Judy, a former Haringey Labour Councillor, was chair of the Hornsey Town Hall Advisory Panel and then the Community Partnership Board, and worked tirelessly to ensure HTH has a sustainable future that would represent community aspirations.

We send our condolences to Judy’s family. We understand there will be a private family funeral; a memorial service for Judy will take place in the early autumn. As soon as we have details of that and the site for leaving messages of condolence, we will post them here.

Former councillor David Winskill, (a minority group rep on the Advisory Panel and Community Partnership Board from its early days) adds,

“Working with Judy was an absolute joy: she was one of the most intelligent and decent people I met as a councillor. She was crucial in opening up the debate about Hornsey Town Hall and made it possible to develop a vision for the use of the building that reflected to aspirations of all Haringey residents. Judy will be greatly missed.”

On 13 August 2015, Haringey Council announced that Hornsey Town Hall and the Town Hall Square have been designated an asset of community value (ACV) in recognition of their cultural significance to Crouch End and Haringey.

This follows an application made by Crouch End Community Arts Festival.

You can read Haringey’s statement here
It also outlines what ACV listing means in the context of the forthcoming procurement process.

We were told on Friday by Haringey Council that the steering group meeting scheduled for Monday 29 June has been postponed. As soon as we have a new date, we’ll let you know.

Many of you will now know about the decision by Haringey Council’s Cabinet to move ahead with the procurement process for Hornsey Town Hall.

You can watch the webcam of the meeting here; the section on Hornsey Town Hall begins at 30’43”.

It’s worth listening to because it contains several references to the importance of community access and use at the Town Hall alongside a comment from the Leader, Cllr Claire Kober, who says that if the right solution can’t be found, the Council needs to be bold enough to “regroup and take the tough decision of saying it’s probably rught that we don’t go down this route … either stop the procurement and go out again or rethink the strategy more fundamentally.”

We’re very aware that there were very many representations to the council ahead of the Cabinet meeting asking them to delay the process.   We completely understand this but in the light of the council decision being made, we think it’s vitally important for the Trust to play its part in the current procurement process to ensure that there is a voice for the community in that process and that we hold the Council to account.

What happens next?

There is an HTH steering group meeting on 29 June, which the Trust attends with the Council, after which we will report back in more detail.

The procurement brief for developers/operators will be jointly-drafted and we also expect our consultation report to be published as part of that brief.

We have asked that the scoring of the evaluation is formalised (we know that community access and use will score 30% of the marks, more than any other part of the tender).

We have asked how developer/operators will engage with the community.

We are currently in discussion with LBH on how best to ensure that all interested parties, whether it is a local community organisation, a specialist arts operator, a higher education body, and so on, can be included in the procurement process and introduced to developer/operators within the OJEU process.

We also want to know how the quality of the tenders will be evaluated, particularly in relation to the architectural heritage of the building.

We also need to ensure that the tender is publicised as widely as possible to attract developers and operators with a creative, imaginative and sustainable vision for the Town Hall and the Town Hall square.

In September 2015, a brief will be published on Contracts Finder, the portal where all local government tenders are published (www.gov.uk/contracts-finder).    If the timetable remains the same, PQQs will need to be in during October, with invitations to tender going out in November and the deadline for receiving tenders, April 2016

In the meantime

We would love to hear your thoughts and concerns.  We are also looking at similar projects around the UK which showcase the type of uses that might work in Hornsey Town Hall.

Here are a couple for starters:

Shoreditch Town Hall (www.shoreditchtownhall.com)

Southwark Town Hall (www.alumnodevelopments.com/projects/southwark-town-hall)

Please tell us about projects you know about and come and visit them with us.

Email us: hornseytownhalltrust@gmail.com

Facebook  HornseyTownHallCreativeTrust

@Hornsey_T_Hall

Our report on the community consultation on the future use of and access to Hornsey Town Hall will go to Cabinet on 16th June, as an appendix to the council’s paper on the Town Hall. The paper being presented to Cabinet seeks approval for the council to run a procurement exercise to select a developer (or a consortium of developer/operator) to build the housing on the car park to the rear of the site, restore the Town Hall and operate it (or work in partnership with an operator to operate it).

The full Cabinet paper can be read here. As it is a large document of over 500 pages (the HTH papers run from page 179 to 206), we have created a cut down version relevant to the Town Hall, which can be downloaded here.

Over 300 people shared their views with us, either through the online survey or at one of our workshops, which we, the Hornsey Town Hall Creative Trust, have analysed and summarised in a report on the consultation.

We would like to thank again everyone who took part in the consultation about community use and access at Hornsey Town Hall. Over 300 people shared their views with us, either through the online survey or at one of our workshops, which we have analysed and summarised in a report on the consultation. You can download the full report here.

Our report on community use and access will go to Cabinet on 16th June, as an appendix to the council’s paper on the Town Hall. Furthermore, this report will be used to create the tender brief for developers so that their tender proposal will respond to what you want to see at the Town Hall.

For a more detailed update please read here.

Following our stakeholder meetings, online questionnaire and public workshop on 16 May, we have drawn up this summary of the consultation on community access to and use of Hornsey Town Hall.
You can read it here.

Thank you to everyone who came to the workshop on Saturday and to those people who have completed the online questionnaire.

We are currently analysing all the comments and responses and will post the initial analysis and executive summary here as soon as that is completed.

HTHCT is carrying out a consultation to understand what sort of community use and access people would like to see at Hornsey Town Hall in the future. There are two ways to take part: 1. Fill in the online survey here – it’ll only take a few minutes! 2. Attend a public workshop on Saturday 16th May at Hornsey Town Hall (2-4pm) to discuss this in more detail. To find out more and register for a place, please go here. Places are limited so please do register if you’d like to come.

HTHCT is carrying out a consultation to understand what sort of community use and access people would like to see at Hornsey Town Hall in the future.

There are two ways to take part:

1. Fill in the online survey here – it’ll only take a few minutes!

2. Attend a public workshop on Saturday 16th May at Hornsey Town Hall (2-4pm) to discuss this in more detail. To find out more and register for a place, please go here. Places are limited so please do register if you’d like to come.

The reason for this community consultation is simple: Later this year, Haringey Council is going to carry out a major procurement process to find a developer/operator (or consortium of companies) to take on the restoration of the Grade 2* listed Town Hall and the ongoing management of the building. This will be funded by the development of the housing on the rest of the site (as detailed in the planning consent of 2010.

Community use and access to this wonderful building is vital. It is also an opportunity to establish Hornsey Town Hall as “a world class model of civic renaissance”.

Hornsey Town Hall Creative Trust, the independent buildings preservation trust established in 2007 to promote the regeneration of HTH, is carrying out this consultation to understand what people want to see here in the future so we can tell the potential operators. This means that the findings from this consultation will form part of the brief that all developers will get, setting the bar high if they want to have a chance of winning the bid to take on this project. When bidders are scored in the procurement process, the criterion worth the most points is their community access and use offer.

We only have until the middle of May to do this consultation to fit in with Haringey’s procurement timescale:

· April – May: community consultation

· Late May: HTHCT analysis of consultation responses and producing brief on community use and access for Haringey Council procurement pack

· 26 May: procurement brief to LBH Cabinet for approval

· August: procurement brief sent out to developers / operators

· March 2016: selection of preferred developer (HTHCT will be involved in scoring the community use and access element)

· July 2016: Cabinet approval of developer / operator

Please do let us know what you think – and tell everyone you know to get involved as well!