'Hurry up' call to reopen Preston's Guild Hall

It's almost five years since Preston's Guild Hall was forced to close. The city's politicians discuss its future during our local election debate.

Transcript

00:00 We've been a big hit hard really with the Guild Hall and the fact, and I know it's not your

00:05 particular fault Matthew, that it's got rack and it's got works to be done, but we do need to get

00:11 that foyer opened because it was used for the Mayor's Ball on Saturday evening, so there's no

00:16 reason why we can't move forward and get that up and running really, really quickly to get some

00:20 kind of venue back to Preston and then we can move forward. It's just, it seems to be slow because

00:26 we were talking before about how many hustings we've done and we're still talking about the same

00:30 things year after year. We definitely need a venue in Preston and at the moment Guild Hall has got

00:36 quite a bit of life in it. As we use the foyer and we're using the foyer going forward for the count

00:43 then there's no reason why it can't be opened as quickly as possible to get that up and running and

00:48 have some kind of venue there. I mean I went to the Grand at Clitheroe last week, you know it's

00:53 a small venue and it brings in loads and loads of business and people and that's what we need.

00:58 You know I'm not asking for a big MEN sort of arena type of thing, but just something that's

01:03 the centre of Preston. It's really important to people who live in Preston and then they use all

01:07 the facilities in Preston itself, the restaurants and the bars, because they make a night of it and

01:13 I think that's we need to get that up and running as soon as possible. In terms of the Guild Hall

01:17 John, I know at the budget meeting earlier this year you were looking to the longer term future

01:23 of that facility. Is that rather defeatist that you think that the Guild Hall in its current form

01:29 really hasn't got much life left in it? You can't get past reality. Buildings have certain lifespans

01:35 and the Guild Hall at most is going to have a few decades left. That's the nature of it. Anyone

01:41 that tells you different doesn't understand the nature of that concrete in the Guild Hall.

01:44 And what we need in Preston more than anything else is actually a conference venue and because

01:49 the Guild Hall is of its time it's served a purpose. It's had a great life but we know it

01:55 is coming near the end of that life at some point. So we need to plan for what's next. And to do that

02:01 you have to have an idea if money suddenly appears. We've had lots of things recently like

02:06 you know levelling up funds or whatever else that come in. You have got to have a plan in place so

02:10 if the money becomes available or an opportunity presents itself you can grab it and say this is

02:15 what we want for our city. In terms of the Guild Hall and the plan to reopen the Guild Hall foyer

02:22 can you put a date on that? Well we hope to do it this year but again it's not anyone's fault that

02:28 we found RAC. And if we had a government that was supportive what they would do is make money

02:32 available to councils to deal with it and deal with it quickly. But we don't. So obviously we're

02:37 trying to find a way of dealing with that going forward. But the plan is Guild Hall will open in the

02:41 next few months and then obviously we need to look at how we can actually open the rest of the

02:46 building because obviously there is RAC and that needs to be dealt with going forward in both the

02:50 you know the main hall and the Charter Theatre. And obviously we could open the foyer which

02:56 you know is a 500-seater venue and that'll be pretty good going forward. But you know we're

03:00 standing behind the Guild Hall we want it open again. But again it's not always that easy when

03:05 we have issues around financing issues around finding things like RAC in the roof.