Letter: Conclusion Of Electric Theatre Consultation Story Could Be Misleading

Published on: 13 Mar, 2016
Updated on: 13 Mar, 2016

By Dawn Hetherington

I have to confess I’m getting a little confused about the Electric Theatre.

The Electric Theatre.

I was under the impression that the consultation, which is now closed, will guide Guildford Borough Council’s (GBC) decision on the theatre’s future and that no organisation is favoured at this stage.

I’d rather supposed that until April 19 when the result of the survey and the decision is announced there was no point in any of the parties putting themselves forward and that a proper process would then follow.

So why is (Academy of Contemporary Music) ACM and their petition being linked with GBC at this stage – is this just lazy editing? Putting them together in a single article could be misleading.

And what about ACM’s petition? Why have they done it? Surely the outcome isn’t going to depend on 1,500 signatures, many of them gathered by canvassers in the High Street.

I was asked to put my name down, but I decided against as I had no information to base a decision on, just plenty of verbal enthusiasm from highly articulate young people. Are these the signatures on this petition?

Fair enough, GATA also gathered a petition – which I believe had 5,000 signatures – but this was to make the theatre an “asset of community value”, not to take it over.

Once again I’m left wondering if there isn’t something we’re not being told about this whole process. Maybe Guildford Dragon was sending us a covert message by putting the ACM and GBC together in the same article and that there’s some positioning happening behind closed doors.

There’s a lot about GBC that draws criticism these days around transparency and fair democracy – I’d be sad to think this was happening to the future of the Electric Theatre.

[David Rose replies: The Guildford Dragon NEWS was contacted by the ACM about publishing a story on its petition and we asked it for more details and photographs. It took a few days before the ACM replied with those details. By then a press statement had been received from Guildford Boorugh Council that basically thanked people for responding to the consultation. A decison was made to combine the stories into one article. Apologies if it appeared to be misleading, but this was not the intention. We were not sending out any ‘covert messages’.]

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