FOR THE ATTENTION OF VICTORIA CRANDON
The Senior Caseworker for Alexandra Park and Palace charitable trust
Charity Commission
Woodfield House
Tangier
Taunton, Somerset, TA1 4BL

3 November 2006

Dear Madam

Proposed lease for Alexandra Palace

Further to our telephone conversation I am faxing as promised our letter.

Hornsey Historical Society is an educational charity whose members study, research and conserve the historical events of Hornsey, Wood Green and surrounding areas. We have in the past arranged many activities, for the benefit of members and public, at Alexandra Palace, such as tours and publications, and we were instrumental in this important building being listed as of special historical interest (Grade II) by the Department of the Environment. The writer represented the Society as member of the statutory Advisory Committee when preliminary and ominous moves were first being made to apply for schemes to alter the governing statutes, but, co-incidentally, the council then decided that we no longer qualified and removed our membership.

On behalf of our General Committee I already wrote to the commission on behalf of the society stating our grave concerns about the proposed Parliamentary Scheme. I wrote on January 8 2001 stating the reasons for our concern and you will have this on file, so I will not rehearse them again in detail.

However, we have been advised of some details of the lease now being proposed pursuant to the Scheme and it is evident that there is grave doubt as to whether undertakings given in the Debate about the scheme by the Minister, including assurances as to the preservation of the historic structures and areas, are being honoured. My committee have therefore again asked me to write. However, it is self-evident that we cannot object in detail to the scheme and the lease until we have sight of both, and we trust that you will direct that this be done, in line with the undertakings given in Parliament about the rights of objectors.

We remind you that Parliament and public were assured that the scheme preserved the charitable objects and uses and a cy-pres scheme was not justified : " the trustees may not grant any such lease which permits a use otherwise than is consistent with the said purposes". While I was a member of the Advisory committee I saw correspondence showing the council were unsuccessful in persuading the commission that the trusts had failed as there was no evidence for this. In fact showed evidence that contrary to the council's assertions the pre-1967 trustees' accounts had many times showed surpluses. Therefore the trusts declared in 1900 remain. The case which defined these was reported in the Times Law Reports as Alexandra Park Trustees and another v Haringey London Borough and Others, 1967. The judge found that the subsequent enabling acts did not affect the trust declared in 1900, and that this trust was one which " imposes on the trustees the duty to use the park and palace and to apply the income for purposes which are wholly charitable, the only substantive purposes being the free recreation on the part of the public ... and educational purposes." Like all charities, all profits from secondary commercial activities (after deduction of administration and other expenses), must be allocated to those primary charitable purposes.

1. An assurance was duly given by the minister, Fiona Mactaggart, during the parliamentary debate on 14 January 2004, to the MPs (Simon Hughes and Don Foster) who had called the debate, that the charity was not being abolished or the educational charitable purposes removed. " The scheme does not amend the charity's purposes. The trustees have a legal responsibility to ensure that those purposes are achieved, and the charity commissioners, as the regulatory body, will hold them to that. The scheme does not provide for the palace to be sold for commercial development " [Hansard at col 020]

2. Yet according to the coloured plan we now see in the draft lease prepared by Aukett Fitzroy Robinson, the area of the palace reserved for primary charitable purposes will be confined to the theatre and a tiny area in a corner for a TV museum. In effect, and contrary to the Minister's undertaking above, the proposed lease envisages perhaps 90% of the area of the Palace, the charity's primary asset, being alienated for purely commercial activities. This is so disproportionate that in effect the charity, so far as the Palace is concerned, will have ceased to operate. It is no defence to assert that rent will be applied to the Park. Public access to the palace for the 1900 purposes has always been one of the essential charitable objects.

3. Linked with this and of profound concern to us is the absence of any provision in the lease that the internal layout of the 1936 studios A and B, from which the world's first regular television programmes were transmitted, and the linking corridor and dressing-rooms, all of which still survive, is to be protected and preserved, as normal in an important listed building. Indeed the developer has specifically stated that they may be gutted (Muswell Hill Times 19.10.2006 p1) In fact, the plan shows a "museum" in a different area of the building from the existing studios, and they have disappeared. Mr Firoka, or his advisers, does not seem to know or care about the implications and duties of owning and managing a listed building.

4. This is totally unacceptable for any part of such a nationally important listed building whose internal structure defines and preserves the special historical interest of the building and was a material reason for its listing. It is not acceptable that the trustee and developer leave this to the planning stage. It is universal good practice when drawing up an agreement with a developer concerning an important listed building that the developer must agree to respect and preserve those areas and they are usually defined by previous commissioning of a detailed conservation brief from an authoritative independent source. This essential first stage has already been done in the case of Hornsey Town Hall. Astonishingly, the council have refused to do this in the case of the Palace. They must be challenged on this.

5. A sop is made that a small area is to be offered to the BBC or other not-for-profit organization to take on the charitable purposes and establish a museum, but far from providing funds to them for this in order for the public to have access on a free or not-for-profit basis, the developers it appears, want to charge such body, at commercial rates, for carrying out these same charitable purposes for them!

6. An important point has been made to the undersigned by other possible bidders. If the lease will in practice be unrestricted, in charitable and planning terms, the asset is being acquired for far below its open-market commercial value. The lease's final terms seem to have been dictated by, and various restrictions stealthily eroded by, the developer, whereas it was originally advertised under the EC regulations (as it legally had to be), when Firoka was selected subject to all these restrictions.

In short, we believe the intention seems to be to ignore the undertakings given in Parliament and the 1900 trusts and this is not acceptable. This scheme would lead to a situation in which our own objectives, together with those of other charities associated with the Palace, would be rendered ineffective in relation to it, and some of these other charities would be obliged to dissolve. We would question whether the scheme and lease represents "best value" for the public money and effort already invested in the charity, both in 1900 by the neighbouring authorities and Middlesex County Council, and since its ownership and redevelopment by Haringey ratepayers. If the commercial uses allowed are disproportionate to, and the income of any activities described in the lease, is not being applied for, " purposes which are wholly charitable" and educational, as the 1967 case established, then the lease cannot be lawful.

We would ask you to urgently reconsider the Scheme, the lease, and their implications, and we appeal to you to allow a proper period and method of consultation with this charity and other relevant parties. Is the commission really content that no charitable activities will effectively be left within a building which was acquired for and should be devoted to them?

Should the commission decide not to intervene to address our concerns, please could you advise what formal appeal procedures against the commission's decision are then available to us.

I am copying this to Mr Simon Hughes because, as the Hansard report shows, we have been obliged to him and Mr Foster for putting many of the points and objections about which we were concerned, to the Minister in the debate (the local MP was not allowed to take part in the debate). Equally, we are keenly aware that the Mayor of London and Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor, take a great interest in the future of Alexandra Palace as a London landmark, but have so far had no power to intervene, despite the Middlesex County Council being founder trustees of the charity. We will always be grateful that Ms Gavron, as the then Chair of the local borough Planning Committee, intervened more than once at our behest to decisively prevent historic features of the Palace being altered or destroyed - most importantly the mast and surviving features of the television station at a time when English Heritage were still considering the application for Listing which we made and which the Palace management opposed.

Yours faithfully

Jacob O'Callaghan

Conservation Officer