Festival Hall Rejected - Newspaper Cutting, 1976
Title
Festival Hall Rejected - Newspaper Cutting, 1976
Date
27 July 1976
Description
Report in Nottingham Evening Post from July 1976 on Nottingham City Council's decision to shelve the building of the Festival Hall.
What's the story?
In the 1970s it was the vision of Nottingham City Council, under the leadership of Councillors Len Maynard and John Carroll, to create innovative and major changes to the Theatre Royal and its surrounding buildings.
With the idea of a Festival Hall complex, which would include a refurbished and modernised Theatre Royal, on the site of the now razed Empire Theatre on South Sherwood Street would stand a new Concert Hall.
In order to enable the Theatre Royal to accommodate new offices, dressing rooms and a large loading bay to enable large-scale work from visiting companies, it was also proposed that the Victorian built County Hotel, immediately adjacent to the Theatre Royal be purchased and demolished.
At a time of austerity in Britain, these proposals were controversial due to the large amounts of money to be spent on the project, as well as the demolition of the County Hotel, a much-loved building in the city.
These arguments spanned most of the 1970s, culminating in 1977/1978 when the Festival Hall plans were rejected, but councillors deciding to continue with the Theatre Royal modernisation, which still included the demolition of the County Hotel.
This continuing drama, worthy of the Theatre Royal stage itself, was regularly played out in the pages of the Nottingham Evening Post, the local daily paper for the city and whose offices at the time were directly opposite the proposed Concert Hall site on Forman Street.
This Nottingham Evening Post article is a detailed report on the City Council decision refurbish and restore the Theatre Royal, but to shelve the overall decision of building the Festival Hall complex.
As the Post states … “Nottingham’s Festival Hall complex has been wheeled into cold storage to await a warmer economic climate”
This decision was made by the now ruling Conservative council, despite much Labour opposition.
The article details passionate debate in the council chambers, summed up at the end by two opposing statements:
“Rather pedestrian, provincial Derby was soon to usurp the city of Nottingham as Queen of the Midlands … we shall be left behind more or less as a dead end”
Rev John Pennington (Labour)
“The citizens don’t want it. We can’t afford it and we aren’t going to have it.”
Bill Bradbury (Conservative)
With the idea of a Festival Hall complex, which would include a refurbished and modernised Theatre Royal, on the site of the now razed Empire Theatre on South Sherwood Street would stand a new Concert Hall.
In order to enable the Theatre Royal to accommodate new offices, dressing rooms and a large loading bay to enable large-scale work from visiting companies, it was also proposed that the Victorian built County Hotel, immediately adjacent to the Theatre Royal be purchased and demolished.
At a time of austerity in Britain, these proposals were controversial due to the large amounts of money to be spent on the project, as well as the demolition of the County Hotel, a much-loved building in the city.
These arguments spanned most of the 1970s, culminating in 1977/1978 when the Festival Hall plans were rejected, but councillors deciding to continue with the Theatre Royal modernisation, which still included the demolition of the County Hotel.
This continuing drama, worthy of the Theatre Royal stage itself, was regularly played out in the pages of the Nottingham Evening Post, the local daily paper for the city and whose offices at the time were directly opposite the proposed Concert Hall site on Forman Street.
This Nottingham Evening Post article is a detailed report on the City Council decision refurbish and restore the Theatre Royal, but to shelve the overall decision of building the Festival Hall complex.
As the Post states … “Nottingham’s Festival Hall complex has been wheeled into cold storage to await a warmer economic climate”
This decision was made by the now ruling Conservative council, despite much Labour opposition.
The article details passionate debate in the council chambers, summed up at the end by two opposing statements:
“Rather pedestrian, provincial Derby was soon to usurp the city of Nottingham as Queen of the Midlands … we shall be left behind more or less as a dead end”
Rev John Pennington (Labour)
“The citizens don’t want it. We can’t afford it and we aren’t going to have it.”
Bill Bradbury (Conservative)
Type
Newspaper cutting
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Researcher: David Longford
