Follow The Money

There are some people who, some might say, naively believe that Arrowcroft's intentions towards the Warehouse Theatre are honourable.

I most certainly would not wish to dispute/question Arrowcroft's intentions, or their recent "Road to Damascus" conversion wrt their new offer to include a space for the Warehouse in their plans.

However, a little bit of background wrt the money flows relating to this project may help "clarify" the reality.

Maybe our local media might like to start probing the agreement between "our" council and Arrowcroft a little more closely?

Warehouse - 'generous offer of £3Million'.

Guess who gets the money if the Warehouse cannot put together a robust business plan for a new theatre (following a three or four year decant from the site)?

Yes, that's right, Arrowcroft.

So what incentive does Arrowcroft have to actually make their arrangement with the Warehouse work?

A cynic might argue that the £3M is in fact an incentive to stop it working!

I leave it to you, the citizens of Croydon, to form your own judgement on that.

Stanhope, on the other hand, have to hand their £3M+ over to the council for arts related projects on site.

Here's another question that our local media might care to ponder.

The odd thing in all this is that the Fairfield Halls have not (yet) objected to the Arena.

Why is that?

Is it because the councillors that sit on its board (Cllr Dudley Mead is one of them) have a conflict of interest?

Our councillors of course do not like conflicts of interest, that is why the recent junket offer by Arrowcroft to fly a few of them over to the Hamburg arena was rejected.

Good for them!

Pity that the same offer last year was not rejected by those in the council, who made the trip in 2006, who are now so vociferously promoting the scheme.

Maybe it is time that our local media started to act in the interests of the citizens of Croydon, and investigated what is really going on here?

What do I know?

I'm just a local resident who's opinions, like many others, have been ignored by "our" council!