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| Alexandra Palace in north London
- the birthplace of television |
Alexandra Palace
TV heritage faces destruction
John Thompson, curator of the Alexandra Palace Television Group's museum*,
believes the single most important place in world TV history may be destroyed
by the Alexandra Palace Trustees' actions.
For many years Alexandra Palace has been presenting a financial burden
to its Trustees, which are comprised exclusively of councillors from the
London Borough of Haringey.
The Trustees made a decision several years ago to seek permission from
the Charity Commission to issue a lease on the whole of the Palace, including
the Television wing, to a third party developer.
In 2001, the Charity Commission promoted a Parliamentary scheme to provide
the Trustees with the power to lease the Palace for up to 125 years. The
scheme was approved and since then the Trustees have invited bids from
prospective lessees.
In November 2005, a shortlist of three was selected:
Business Design Centre
Earl's Court & Olympia Group
Firoka (Heythrop Park)
Earlier this year, Firoka's bid was selected as the preferred developer.
The lease is now under final negotiation by the parties concerned, and
is due for completion and signing at the end of July 2006.
A period of one month for representations by interested parties was required
under the Charities Act, Section 36/6. The Alexandra Palace Television
Group, along with others, submitted its representation, including a petition
with around 1,600 signatures.
The petition read as follows: "We are concerned that any alterations
may be detrimental to the building and its broadcasting history, which
would mean the loss of the single most important site in the world marking
the beginning of the first high definition public television service.
"If any scheme is put in place, we consider it vital that the historic
areas of the Palace must be preserved."
The Group submitted its representation to Alexandra Palace's general
manager, Keith Holder. Thompson was surprised and frustrated when Holder
advised him that the representation would not be submitted to the Trustees
in full, as he would summarise the petition.
Holder suggested that there might have been data protection issues with
regard to submitting the names and addresses of petitioners to the Trustees.
Thompson finds this absurd, as petitioners signed expressly for that purpose.
Thompson believes this weakened the representation, because none of the
numerous comments within the petition were reported to the Trustees. Holder
selected one sheet from the petition as an example of its contents, but
not a full summary of the comments.
At an Alexandra Palace consultative committee meeting in late June, Thompson
raised the issue of inappropriate analysis by Holder. At the meeting,
two of the Trustees, Cllr Sheila Rainger and Cllr Robert Hare, requested
sight of the full petition from Thompson, which he provided.
"So far, there appears to be no protection of this historically important
site within the lease," Thompson argues.
"The management and Trustees appear to have a single-minded objective
to offload their responsibility for the Palace, with no regard to its
world heritage. There have been no reassurances whatsoever from the Trustees
or management team, that there will be some form of protection."
Firoka's initial proposal indicated that museum space might be available
elsewhere within the Palace. Thompson believes this highlights the complete
lack of understanding of the significance of this historic space.
"After all, this is where it actually happened in 1936. The pioneers
like Baird, EMI and the BBC all contributed to the birth of high definition
television at Alexandra Palace," concludes Thompson. Since the consultative
committee's meeting Thompson has made the petition available to any Trustee
of Alexandra Palace who would like sight of it.
Readers who would like to make their views known to the Trustees should
write to:
Cllr Charles Adje
Chairman
Alexandra Palace and Park Board
River Park House
225 High Road
Wood Green
London
N22 8HQ
* The APTG Museum is presently housed in Studio A
BHTP Comment
Steve and I would urge anyone with strong feelings on this issue
to write to the AP Trustees, as directed above.
A sufficient number of such submissions might conceivably lead to elements
of the prospective lease being re-written to offer special protection
to the Television Heritage areas of AP.
Work is continuing on the TCC event in the hope that, whatever its
eventual fate, Studio A will still be available to us on 2nd November.
Even in a worst-case scenario, we think it unlikely that any changes or
redevelopment to the premises would commence before then (but we don't
yet know for sure).
As soon as the new lease is signed and the handover has taken place (at
the end of July according to the above document), I shall be in touch
with the new owners to request a contract for the TCC event, which was
booked with AP last January. If all goes well, I should then be able to
tackle specific issues that have been raised over the last few months,
including high-speed/dedicated uplinks, etc.
Regards,
Martin
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