Dear Prestonville,

We have lived at no. 19, next door but one to the Church Hall for over 12 years.  During that time, we have had a number of distressing occurences as a direct result of the activities in the Hall and it is important to remember in your discussion about community, that we are the community too!My husband has a disabled badge and cannot walk far.  On numerous occasions people dropping children off or picking them up from the Hall have parked in the disabled bay and not infrequently told us to f… off when we politely asked if they could move.

We have had unsupervised youths running down the middle of the road at 9pm on a Friday night (the Youth Club we believe) and daring each other to run as near as they can to on-coming cars.

We have had children and young people climbing on our wall, our fencing and our pillars.

We have had youths playing knock-down Ginger at 9pm at night – banging hard on all the doors near the Church Hall and running away.  This frightened the little old lady who lives next door to us – and we didn’t want to suffer that either.  She, as we, are also members of the community you speak of!

We could go on, but suffice to say it has not been altogether a pleasant experience to live next to the Church Hall.  We do want you to put the other side of the equation on our behalf.  In the essence of presentating a fair picture of the reality, rather than the rhetoric, this is essential.

Most importantly, the community activities (and we would argue whether the Hall is the hub of the area – it is empty most of the time, and not like a village hall which has a completely different community purpose) have only to go round the corner into the Church itself.
Nothing need be cancelled – just held there instead.  It is a vast, and again it would appear mostly empty building for a lot of the time.  Isn’t that what the Church was originally intended for? i.e. a meeting place for people of all ages (and not just for services and related gatherings).

Most worryingly, when a friend had someone knock on her door with a petition and she also asked why the community activities could not be welcomed in the Church she was told ‘we don’t want people in there, we have some valuable items there!’.

Thus we want you to make clear to people at the meeting and indeed to understand yourselves that there is a definite ‘downside’ to living near the Hall and these are only a few of the problems we’ve had.

We look forward to your confirmation that you will present a balanced picture of the pros and cons of the Hall remaining as it is and will include our email in any way that is appropriate.

Best wishes
Dr L Heath
James Carroll

The Public Meeting about the future of the Church Hall in Exeter Street is also the Prestonville Community Association’s Annual General Meeting, at which we elect the PCA’s Committee. We consider all Prestonville residents to be members of the PCA, and if you’re over 16, you have a vote.

If you’d like to join the Committee, you can stand for election at the AGM. A candidate needs to be nominated by one person and seconded by another. We can accept nominations up to the day of the meeting, though not at the meeting itself. Please email

or phone 705134.

If you’re interested but not sure, the AGM isn’t the only opportunity to get involved with the PCA. The Committee can co-opt up to five members in addition to the six ordinary members and four ‘officers’ (Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer) we hope to elect at the AGM. And Committee meetings are open to Prestonville residents whether they’re on the committee or not
.

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We’ll be discussing the future of the Exeter Street Church Hall at this year’s PCA AGM, with news from the Vicar, Revd Martin Poole, and a presentation from thehallgetinvolved. It would be good to see a good turn out from the community. As always, there is room on the PCA Committee for new members.

We also discussed the Hall, and preparations for the AGM, at a committee meeting on 12 January. Here are the minutes:

PCA Minutes 12.01.12

Everyone is welcome to join in the Community Carols at 6.00 Sunday 11 December outside The Chimney House (or in the Exeter Hall if raining), followed by mulled wine and mince pies in the Hall, provided by the PCA.

A meeting between St. Luke’s Church and local people took place on Weds 7th December to discuss the proposed sale of Exeter Street hall. There has been strong support from residents to save the hall and over 400 signatures have been collected by volunteers in the surrounding streets.

The encouraging news from the meeting is that an opportunity does exist for the hall to remain in use for the community but time is running out.

We need your ideas, knowledge and contacts now.

Ideas – How would you like to see the Hall developed?
Knowledge – Do you have any experience of developing community buildings, or skills that could help us plan?
Contacts – We could do with advice from a reliable builder, plus legal and planning advice. Do you know people who’ve done similar things?

You can get involved by

• visiting the facebook page for our campaign to add your thoughts.
• sending an email to thehallgetinvolved@prestonville.org.uk with your ideas
• coming along to the hall for a mince pie and mulled wine after the community carols on Sunday 11th Dec outside the Chimney House. Carols begin at 6pm.

Paul Winter

St Luke's Church Hall: Exeter Street

A meeting was held on Wednesday 30th November at the Chimney House to discuss the sale of St. Luke’s Church Hall and the impact it will have on the community. If you weren’t aware, the Church held a public meeting on 23rd September 2011 to announce that they would be putting the Church Hall up for informal tender.   See details:

This petition is to support the preservation of St Luke’s Church Hall as a community building by upholding the current D1 Class use status in the event of its sale. Under the Use Classes Order 1987 (as amended) D1 includes: medical and health services, creche, day nursery, day centre, public halls, exhibition halls, art galleries, non-residential education and training centres, places of worship and church halls.

We the undersigned, ask Brighton and Hove City Council to support the local residents in preserving the community use of this Church Hall in the heart of our neighbourhood.

Other concerns that were raised at the meeting:

here are the photos of the pumpkins….mike