{"id":9044,"date":"2014-11-28T16:51:22","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T16:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=9044"},"modified":"2014-11-28T16:51:22","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T16:51:22","slug":"power-of-people-stokes-heritage-occupiers-defend-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=9044","title":{"rendered":"Power of People: Stoke’s Heritage ‘Occupiers’ defend Town Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protesters campaigning against the sell-off of the Fenton Town Hall in Stoke-on-Trent have vowed to occupy the historic building over Christmas and beyond as they fear that Government pledges to place a restrictive covenant on the building to protect it would not guarantee the building\u2019s preservation, or public access<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The Independent writes<\/span>:
\nThis comes after the Government failed to guarantee them time to draw up a business plan that would see it returned it to the community. It is believed several bids from the private sector have been tabled.<\/p>\n

Local campaigners this week met Shailesh Vara, the Minister for Courts and Legal Aid, Rob Flello, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent, and the Victorian Society over the future of the building. Yet the meeting ended in deadlock.<\/p>\n

The 30 protesters refused to leave as they \u2018had not received assurances they would have four months to prepare a business plan for community use of the Town Hall before a decision was made about its future\u2019, according to one observer at the meeting.<\/p>\n

The Victorian Society is not directly supporting the occupation of the Town Hall, or its plan, but a spokesman said whatever happens to the building \u2018its former council chamber and First World War memorial should remain intact and accessible to the public\u2019.<\/p>\n

Fenton Town Hall was built by the Baker family in 1888 and designed by Robert George Scrivener. It became a magistrates\u2019 court which closed in December 2012.<\/p>\n

Victorian Society news\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Stoke Sentinel article<\/a><\/p>\n

The Independent article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protesters campaigning against the sell-off of the Fenton Town Hall in Stoke-on-Trent have vowed to occupy the historic building over Christmas and beyond as they fear that Government pledges to place a restrictive covenant on the building to protect it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9045,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9044\/revisions\/9045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}