Water Lane Hall: Town vote to be held to test public opinion on future of Bishop's Stortford church building

A town-wide vote has been called by campaigners battling to save the Water Lane United Reformed Church Hall from demolition.

At Bishop's Stortford's annual town meeting on Monday evening, the parish poll was proposed by Gailie Pollock, who runs Contexture Theatre with her husband, Simon Anderson.

The hall, now owned by East Herts Council, is set to be razed as part of the authority's planned Old River Lane (ORL) development, featuring a new arts centre, shops, offices and 225 homes.

Arts groups across the town have joined forces with organisations including Bishop's Stortford Civic Federation to block the current plans.

The test of public opinion, likely to cost thousands of pounds, must be held within 14 to 25 days of the demand and paid for by the town council.

The date will be fixed by East Herts Council's returning officer. Parishioners will be able to cast their vote in person only between 4pm and 9pm on a day and at a polling station both yet to be determined. Such votes must allow for a yes or no answer.

Ms Pollock said: "At the heart of ORL is the brazen removal of Water Lane Hall. I'd like to call upon the town council to hold a parish poll under the Local Government Act to ask residents directly about this important matter.

"I propose the question to be put to local residents is as follows: 'Do you agree that we should require the town council to use its influence and resources to save Water Lane Hall from demolition and help to secure its future for arts and community use and convince East Herts Council to halt the current development plans for ORL until a plan more in keeping with the district plan policy Bish 8 [outlining how ORL should be developed] has been prepared and the majority of the community agrees with it?'"

The meeting was attended by around 40 members of the public and Ms Pollock easily achieved the 10 votes or one-third approval needed to call the poll. The result is not binding on the town council.

Concerns about the ORL planning applications submitted by East Herts' development partner Cityheart dominated the meeting at South Mill Arts.

The mayor, Cllr Dave Anderson, outlined the town council's stance, particularly about changes to the proposed arts centre. It was originally mooted as a £30m project, including a 544-seat theatre auditorium, but has been trimmed to a £15.5m cinema-led complex.

He said the town council had agreed to invest in the original East Herts scheme. But when the district council said it could no longer afford the theatre element, citing changes to local authority borrowing rules, Covid-19 and inflation, the town council's leader Cllr John Wyllie and his deputy, Cllr David Snowdon, tried to find a solution.

Cllr Anderson said: "The town council offered to make a very significant investment into the scheme in order to save the theatre element. This investment could potentially have been as much as £7m.

"Unfortunately, this was not seen as sufficient by East Herts Council. Cllrs Wyllie and Snowdon spent days in meetings trying to save the original scheme."

In the end, he said, the town council developed its own arts strategy and decided to invest £3m at South Mill Arts instead with a similar sum ringfenced for developing a new sports facility for the town.

Cllr Snowdon added that he had told district council leader Cllr Linda Haysey he would ask the town council's finance committee to consider the URC hall's future "if East Herts was a willing seller".

"However, in my conversations with the United Reformed Church, they were very clear that they sold the hall because the costs of renovating it were too high for them," he said.

Cllr Snowdon said that he was happy to help other potential purchasers to approach the district council.

Last September, the civic federation secured the hall's registration as an Asset of Community Value, which imposes a six-month pause on any sale to give the local community a chance to submit an offer to buy it. That expires on March 23.

Its chairman Paul Dean updated the meeting that "a full building survey has been conducted".

He said that there were "some structural issues but nothing significant" and repairs including reroofing were likely to cost £300,000. He estimated the hall was worth £650,000 and turning it into a "more suitable space for performing arts" could cost £5m.

It is unclear where further funding would come from. The Indie understands East Herts Council paid £975,000 for the hall in 2019.