Royal Opera House

The massive development is nearing its completion and the new facilities will be occupied in the coming year. During February the ROH celebrated their 'topping out' with a party in the partially restored Floral Hall. The ROH took great exception to the CGCA circulating a leaflet at this event, which pointed out that the only reason the Floral Hall was being restored at all was because of the years of struggle by the CGCA and others, and that over ¾ of the building has been demolished by the ROH.

Yet more public money was given to the ROH, despite the company being closed throughout the greater part of the year. At the time of going to press the contractors have made very substantial claims (in the Millions) for additional work and costs incurred by the sequence of information not being made available. The project manager is Stanhope plc, one of whose tasks is to ensure the project comes in on time and on budget. The implications of the contractors' various claims will be watched with great interest, especially as the managing director of Stanhope is none other than Stuart Lipton, a ROH board member. This would appear to be a clear conflict of interest as the company is earning a great deal from the ROH development.

A small but significant issue is still to be satisfactorily resolved: the assurance that a tourist information shop will be incorporated in the development on the corner of Russell Street and Bow Street. Now that the ROH has sold all the commercial elements of their development to Scottish Widows, the desire to get huge rental income from every square foot of the commercial space is threatening the creation of the tourist information shop - a facility that was specifically required as part of the planning consent.

Largely due to the efforts of local councillor Alexander Nicoll the ROH's proposals for a video display as part of the tower on Bow Street and Russell Street have been dropped.

We all hope that with the new ROH Executive Director and the new building, the ROH will turn over a new leaf and be an institution of which the area can be proud to be associated with, rather than exploited by.

Jim Monahan

 

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