– How Lenzie Public Hall came to be – some historical facts and documents
– What happened 2013 – 2020
– What’s sadly happened since
– What’s been done so far about this
– What we’re looking to do next / how you can help
How Lenzie Public Hall came to be – some historical facts and documents
The hall was built in 1892 using funds raised by the local community by organising a Bazaar at the Fine Art Galleries on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow.
A special train was put on to get the local community back from the Bazaar. Can you imagine ScotRail doing this now?
The Kirky Herald printed an in-depth 5 page article on the Bazaar. Each stall was given a flower name. The article lists all the flower names, the names of the stallholders (pre-dominantly Lenzie women) and where they lived in Lenzie. Did a relative or someone who once lived in your house raise money for the hall?
The hall was built on land donated to the community for use as a public hall.
The hall was owned and run by Trustees selected from the community until transferred to Strathkelvin District Council (now EDC) in 1979.
Lenzie Public Hall has been the “home” to Lenzie Girl Guides since at least 1963.
What happened 2013 – 2020
In 2013 EDC let the hall on a fully repairing and insuring lease to the Trustees of Malcolm Cancer Fund (a Taekwondo Club).
In September 2019 EDC terminated this lease. The building was, at this time, still in use by the community.
With very little notice, Lenzie Girl Guides had to remove their belongings from the hall and rehouse these (primarily to private homes) and find alternative lets for all Rainbow, Brownie and Guide units (11 units in total) operating at that time from the hall – the closing of the hall effectively having a disproportionate effect on girls in the community of Guiding age.
Within a few weeks (and with no consultation with the community) EDC put the hall up for let, once again, on the basis of a fully repairing and insuring lease.
On 20 February 2020 EDC came the fantastic news that EDC had approved a budget line of £500,000 to support the refurbishment of the hall. The hall was now to be refurbished before being re-let.
Lease applications for the hall closed 28 February 2020. Whilst Love Lenzie had initially looked at submitting its own application, it was approached by LEAP Ltd (LEAP), a charity which seeks to meet the needs of over 50s in a practical and fun way. LEAP, who were also considering submitting an application to see if Love Lenzie would, instead of submitting its own application, support an application by LEAP. After careful thought on the part of all the community members involved, Love Lenzie decided to support LEAP’s application instead of putting in their own application. Love Lenzie provided the Appendix (Community support part) to LEAP’s application.
More great news came in June 2020 with EDC selecting LEAP as preferred tenant for the hall.
As per our Facebook and website immediately after this, this was a fantastic start at getting Lenzie Public Hall back as a vibrant space for use by the whole community. LEAP would be an asset to have in Lenzie, who we looked forward to welcoming and working with.
What’s sadly happened since
Sadly, despite:
– Love Lenzie, Lenzie Community Council, Lenzie Girlguiding and LEAP plus other community members and organisations all at times chasing and being given reassurances by EDC Officers and Councillors that funds remained available for the project and that the project would be progressed / was progressing
– the refurbishment of the hall being on EDC’s 10-year capital development plan with a budget of £500K for expenditure in Year 2022/23 and then 30-year capital investment plan with an allocated budget of £3.25m for 2023/24 with progress planned
– the upgrade of the hall being since 2022 on EDC’s Local Development Plan pages 57 & 58 for the area
little or no effective progress has ever been made towards refurbishing the hall.
Towards the end of January 2025 LEAP chased again by email for news, receiving no immediate response to their email.
On 28 February 2025 (as a delayed response to LEAP’s January chaser email) EDC emailed LEAP to notify them that EDC was to: “consider as part of its budget next week a proposal to cease all proposed refurbishment works to Lenzie Public Hall. The costs related to the refurbishment of the Hall are substantial at approximately £6m. Subject to Council approving its budget on the 6th March, we will look to withdraw the offer of lease in favour of LEAP .” This email was sent more or less at the same time as the publication online of the documents for the Council budget meeting and without any prior discussion or consultation with LEAP, Love Lenzie or any other community members or organisations (e.g. Lenzie Community Council), whether face-to-face, over the phone or by email.
Acting swiftly, various members of the community (some previously involved with looking at lease of the hall back in 2019/20, some new) put together a petition against the proposals signed by over 600 people in 2 days and submitted to the EDC on the day of the budget meeting. They sent emails to Councillors opposing the proposals. However, given the short notice and lack of any real means of challenge (the only way being to submit via a Councillor an alternative budget by 12 noon on the Tuesday before the meeting of doing so), the community was put by EDC in an extremely difficult (almost impossible) position from which to challenge the proposals.
The paperwork for the Council budget meeting on 6 March had in it that the “costs to deliver the project in full [are] now estimated at £6m” and that it is recommended that:
“all work should cease on the project immediately”
“the Council formally withdraw from the agreement to lease the building to … LEAP”
“the property be declared surplus to operational requirements”;
“offers are … sought for its sale/transfer/lease to interested third parties for the provision of community facilities
These proposals were passed unamended.
Lenzie Public Hall is no longer to be refurbished.
EDC are no longer to lease the hall to LEAP.
The hall has been declared surplus to operational requirements.
Offers are to be sought for its sale/transfer/lease to interested third parties for the provision of community facilities.
We understand though that “it was highlighted at the meeting … that the three local Councillors and the council in general want the hall to be retained as public space and that any community group who wanted to attempt to take it on would be supported.
Recently members of the community have seen contractors and EDC employees going into the hall and furniture and items being removed from the hall and placed in a skip.
EDC were looking to remarket the hall the end of May but have not as yet.
What’s been done so far?
Freedom of Information Request
On 6 March a Freedom of Information Request was submitted to EDC for documents including a copy of the £6 million refurbishment cost estimate.
Despite EDC being under an obligation to give the information as “quickly as possible” and “within 20 days at the most”, EDC failed to do this.
EDC finally responded to the request on 28 April, 55 working days’ after the request and only following it being necessary to request a internal review of its failure to reply.
This is the £6 million cost estimate.
Complaint
Love Lenzie, Lenzie Community Council, Girl Guiding Lenzie District and various members of the community have sent a formal complaint to EDC (cc: our MP, all MSPs and all EDC Councillors) about what’s happened concerning Lenzie Public Hall.
The main ask of this is that EDC and its Councillors demonstrate their commitment to giving support to a community organisation taking on the hall by agreeing to not market the hall for a period of 6 months – to give everyone (the community, local groups and organisations, EDC, the Councillors elected to represent Lenzie, all our EDC representatives, plus MSPs and MP and potential funders) time to work and engage together to explore comprehensively, and once and for all, the feasibility of a well-run community-led organisation taking on the hall as a Community Asset Transfer.
EDC have replied but haven’t agreed to this. The reason they have stated is that: “more than one community group … expressed an interest in the facility during the previous marketing campaign and that in order to ensure a fair and transparent process the Hall has to be marketed to ensure every community led group has the opportunity to express their interest in the facility.“.
The same signatories have now sent a joint reply asking:
– for their complaint to be investigated further at Stage 2 of EDC’s Complaints Handling Procedure
– that EDC do not market the hall for a period of 6 months to enable any community-led organisation that wishes to do so the opportunity to look at the feasibility of / submit an application for a Community Asset Transfer
– that, if Lenzie Public Hall is ever to be run by a third party that is not a community-led organisation, then this must be on “lease only” terms (not via a transfer / sale) with EDC retaining obligations in the lease to repair the building and the ability to be terminate the lease if the third party fails to provide affordable and readily accessible community facilities. For this, the hall must first be refurbished, as previously agreed, before being let to the third party.
What we’re looking to do next / how you can help?
We’re now waiting a Stage 2 reply to our complaint.
If you’d like to submit your own complaint, we’ve put together this draft email distribution list for helping you do so.
In the meantime, we’re looking to swiftly get together a team of people to look at (come what may) and, once and for all, the feasibility of a well-run community-led organisation taking on the hall as a Community Asset Transfer.
We’ve an amazing community with a wealth of skills, experience, enthusiasm and determination. Working together we can do this!