Dear Sirs Market Hall - change of use and interior alterations etc etc to Kingston's Creative Heart
I write to oppose this iniquitous application.
1.1 It is part of an insidious and worrying pattern whereby this pleasant, restful, town is being turned into a commercial desert: witness the Old Post Office and Eden Street Applications AND THE THREATENED BOARD WALK along the river starting at the High Street. This overall effect is unwanted by the council taxpayers and is a flagrant disregard of the principle NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
1.2 The Borough's public realm is being steadily removed and encroached upon. This is contrary to planning guidelines - even they recognise that, with so many people living in cramped quarters, and with small children, they need the facility of spaces outside to enjoy without having to spend money.
2. Enormous amounts of public money (which means money raised from us) have been spent recently on (successfully) improving the Market Square; notably by adding eating places all round the Market Hall. The Hall has been refurbished lately, so this money will have been wasted.
The public lavatories in the Entrance will doubtless be denied to all but restaurant customers (either openly or by subterfuge); another important example of loss of public amenity.
2.1 The eating places are now to be evicted by the greed of the intending Pizza lessees, who require outdoor seating . They wish to alter part of the historic interior by removing a staircase merely in order to accommodate the outdoor seating when outdoor seating is not required.
2.2 Therefore a lot of refurbishment money will be wasted.
2.3 The removal of the staircase will cause a fire exit risk.
2.4 The other alterations will compromise the historic interior of 1840, with its cast iron construction and rich décor upstairs, including engaged columns and elaborate cornices. The building is related in time to the nearby, recently restored, St Raphael's Church in Portsmouth Road, both buildings relating Kingston to that seminal 1840's epoch just as the Railway arrived at Surbiton.
2.5 The statue of Queen Anne relates the Hall back to an earlier period of prosperity for the town. This is a Royal Borough - it would be nice to see some evidence of aesthetic awareness of this by the Council.
2.6 The Council have failed to consult either with the eateries just outside the Market Hall or with the 40 plus tenants inside (until this week apparently!!) and have failed even to establish the rents they are currently paying.
Thus they are proceeding without a clear idea of the financial implications of the proposal.
3. The Council has plainly refused to research the present uses, and alternative uses to that currently proposed, for the Hall.
4. The environment of the (recently restored) Parish Church is also seriously compromised. The outdoor seating will be close to the churchyard entrance and to the Surrey Regiment Memorial Gates. The restaurant will demand (and be permitted) glaring illuminated signs which will disfigure the surroundings on all four sides and ruin its character.
5. The publicity for this development has been entirely lacking - as a near neighbour I only heard about it by accident. I fear it has not been by chance that it merely consists of inconspicuous A4 copy letters affixed to the building itself. There are none even in the rest of the Market Square.
6. The Council's actual attitude to the "historic Market Square" is exemplified by the total failure to repair the broken arm of the Shrubsole statue (in front of the Market Hall). As the Shrubsole Family is referred to in the display within National Westminster Bank, surely the Council, if it were at all genuinely interested in the appearance of the Square, would have effected the repair by now, and would have persuaded the Bank to assist, as a matter of goodwill. My approaches to the Council on this subject have been ignored, and experience shows that once a statue is damaged, it will attract further malice until one is told that it is beyond repair. Ironically, it features in a recent Henry Moore Institute for the Study of Sculpture pamphlet on Kingston sculpture which was available in the Borough Libraries.
While the Council is able to award permission to itself, it is appalling to see the happy-go-lucky process by which it has decided to proceed. The timing is impeccable too: just as so much restoration has been carried out in and around the Hall, as will be apparent from the foregoing.
The worry must be that this will be the precedent for future dealings in property which are owned by the general public, I stress. It is my deep concern over these matters of governance which has impelled me to copy in two of the Councillors.
Yours faithfully
A Resident
I write to oppose this iniquitous application.
1.1 It is part of an insidious and worrying pattern whereby this pleasant, restful, town is being turned into a commercial desert: witness the Old Post Office and Eden Street Applications AND THE THREATENED BOARD WALK along the river starting at the High Street. This overall effect is unwanted by the council taxpayers and is a flagrant disregard of the principle NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
1.2 The Borough's public realm is being steadily removed and encroached upon. This is contrary to planning guidelines - even they recognise that, with so many people living in cramped quarters, and with small children, they need the facility of spaces outside to enjoy without having to spend money.
2. Enormous amounts of public money (which means money raised from us) have been spent recently on (successfully) improving the Market Square; notably by adding eating places all round the Market Hall. The Hall has been refurbished lately, so this money will have been wasted.
The public lavatories in the Entrance will doubtless be denied to all but restaurant customers (either openly or by subterfuge); another important example of loss of public amenity.
2.1 The eating places are now to be evicted by the greed of the intending Pizza lessees, who require outdoor seating . They wish to alter part of the historic interior by removing a staircase merely in order to accommodate the outdoor seating when outdoor seating is not required.
2.2 Therefore a lot of refurbishment money will be wasted.
2.3 The removal of the staircase will cause a fire exit risk.
2.4 The other alterations will compromise the historic interior of 1840, with its cast iron construction and rich décor upstairs, including engaged columns and elaborate cornices. The building is related in time to the nearby, recently restored, St Raphael's Church in Portsmouth Road, both buildings relating Kingston to that seminal 1840's epoch just as the Railway arrived at Surbiton.
2.5 The statue of Queen Anne relates the Hall back to an earlier period of prosperity for the town. This is a Royal Borough - it would be nice to see some evidence of aesthetic awareness of this by the Council.
2.6 The Council have failed to consult either with the eateries just outside the Market Hall or with the 40 plus tenants inside (until this week apparently!!) and have failed even to establish the rents they are currently paying.
Thus they are proceeding without a clear idea of the financial implications of the proposal.
3. The Council has plainly refused to research the present uses, and alternative uses to that currently proposed, for the Hall.
4. The environment of the (recently restored) Parish Church is also seriously compromised. The outdoor seating will be close to the churchyard entrance and to the Surrey Regiment Memorial Gates. The restaurant will demand (and be permitted) glaring illuminated signs which will disfigure the surroundings on all four sides and ruin its character.
5. The publicity for this development has been entirely lacking - as a near neighbour I only heard about it by accident. I fear it has not been by chance that it merely consists of inconspicuous A4 copy letters affixed to the building itself. There are none even in the rest of the Market Square.
6. The Council's actual attitude to the "historic Market Square" is exemplified by the total failure to repair the broken arm of the Shrubsole statue (in front of the Market Hall). As the Shrubsole Family is referred to in the display within National Westminster Bank, surely the Council, if it were at all genuinely interested in the appearance of the Square, would have effected the repair by now, and would have persuaded the Bank to assist, as a matter of goodwill. My approaches to the Council on this subject have been ignored, and experience shows that once a statue is damaged, it will attract further malice until one is told that it is beyond repair. Ironically, it features in a recent Henry Moore Institute for the Study of Sculpture pamphlet on Kingston sculpture which was available in the Borough Libraries.
While the Council is able to award permission to itself, it is appalling to see the happy-go-lucky process by which it has decided to proceed. The timing is impeccable too: just as so much restoration has been carried out in and around the Hall, as will be apparent from the foregoing.
The worry must be that this will be the precedent for future dealings in property which are owned by the general public, I stress. It is my deep concern over these matters of governance which has impelled me to copy in two of the Councillors.
Yours faithfully
A Resident