What will happen to the Barbican now? STEPHEN LEWIS reports.


IT IS “unlikely” that the multi-million pound redevelopment of the Barbican Centre by Absolute Leisure will now go ahead, City of York Council leader Andrew Waller admitted today.

That’s as close as he is going to get to admitting just yet that the deal is off. But with Absolute Leisure not returning calls and a council debate on the future of the centre scheduled for next week, take it from us; the deal is dead.

So what now for the Barbican?

Coun Waller isn’t giving much away. “There will be a report coming to executive next Tuesday,” he says. “I will be making a statement.”

That doesn’t take things far. There is broad agreement, however, that one way or another, it is vital the Barbican be used for the purpose it was originally intended for – as a community sports and leisure centre.

That is blindingly obvious, says Dorothy Nicholson, who campaigned long and hard to save the Barbican swimming pool.

It incenses her that the very council which let the Barbican go to rack and ruin has now launched a campaign urging more people to use their local leisure centres to get fit.

“If you have a council that’s saying it wants a new campaign to encourage people to do more physical activity – well, it speaks for itself,” she said.

Reopening the Barbican auditorium as a decent-sized music venue is also a priority, adds Chris Humphreys of The Jam Factory music studio.

York is well-served by small venues such as The Duchess and Fibbers. “But it would be great to have a larger music venue again that would attract bigger bands,” he said.

There are probably few people who would disagree with any of this. But after five years of neglect, and in a recession to boot, how is any of this to be managed?

We need to take a long, hard look at all the options, says Ian Gillies, leader of the Conservatives on the city council. But we need to do it quickly.

“We cannot afford to let this fester for another five weeks, let alone five years,” he said.

Two options appear to be making the early running: setting up a trust to run the Barbican as a community sports centre independent of the council; and using the Barbican site for a combined council HQ and community centre.

The two options are not mutually exclusive. Here we look at each...


A combined council HQ/ community centre

THE Barbican Centre was ruled out as a possible site for the council’s new HQ last autumn. But Save Our Barbican’s Ernie Dickinson asks: is it really such a bad idea?

The city council still owns the Barbican Centre itself, and it owns the Kent Street car park, he says. With the collapse in land values recently, it may well be able to afford to buy back the former Barbican car park, where Persimmon was planning to build 160 flats before it shelves the scheme because of the recession.

Taken altogether, there would be plenty of land there for a council HQ and a sports and leisure centre, Mr Dickinson said. “It would be an ideal site.”

David Scott, leader of the Labour group on the city council, agrees. His group is still in favour of building a community pool at the Barbican. That would cost, he admitted: but in the context of £40 million for a new council HQ it would not seem so much.

“And mightn’t it make sense for us to have a civic centre, with a council HQ and also sports and leisure facilities?” he said.

That would assume the council could buy the land: and there is also the question of the £2 million the council has committed to a pool at the university. But if the university doesn’t deliver that by 2011, the council wouldn’t be obliged to come up with the money, points out Conservative leader Ian Gillies.


A Barbican Trust

THE city council handed management of York’s museums and art gallery over to a trust in 2002 – and there is general agreement that the move was a success.

The York Museums Trust has been able to tap into funding sources that the city council simply wouldn’t have been able to, says the trust’s business development director, Michael Woodward.

It has secured something like £4 million in grants since 2002, which have allowed it to refurbish the Art Gallery and the Hospitium in Museum Gardens, as well as to update Kirkgate in the Castle Museum and create the museum’s new Sixties exhibition. There are plans afoot for the Yorkshire Museum as well.

The upshot of all this has been a big increase in visitor numbers – up from 380,000 in 2002 to 515,000 last year.

A leisure centre trust wouldn’t be able to attract so much funding, but it would still get real tax breaks.

Glen Johnson, chief executive of the Tadcaster Community Swimming Pool Trust, said because of its charitable status it was able to get an 80 per cent discount on its business rates of about £40,000 a year. There were also VAT benefits, and the trust could apply for a range of grants a council couldn’t do, he said.

His trust is managed by a board of volunteers, and has 12 full-time staff as well as about 70 volunteers who help out at the centre.

It is a model that can work, he said.

And it is a model many in York would like to see for the Barbican. Green councillors Andy D’Agorne and Dave Taylor, who represent Fishergate ward, are putting a motion to council next week urging it to review all options for the Barbican.

“This should include a re-examination of the potential for creating a trust to deliver sports, leisure facilities, entertainment and community use on the site,” the motion says.

Ernie Dickinson, of Save Our Barbican, also backs a trust.

His organisation is planning to call a public meeting at which Save Our Barbican will be formally wound up, and a new Barbican Association launched.

The association will seek to represent what the people of York want for the site, Mr Dickinson said. He himself would be pushing for a charitable trust to run a sports and leisure complex at the site, he said.

It would be managed by volunteers, and would be largely independent of political control. “For far too long, politicians of all parties have been using the Barbican as a political football.”