YMCA Site

[Roland Jeffery]

The Fann Street YMCA is due to close next month.

Residents of Golden Lane and Barbican have been promised consultation over the future of this site - which in the past has caused real nuisance to residents.

Does any one know what is happening or what proposals are?

[David Graves (your Alderman)]

Christine was not able to attend the meeting - she sent her apologies.

The answer is that there is no decision regarding the future - there is a market testing exercise using external consultants to establish the requirement (or not) for a hostel. If there is no such need the space could most probably then become residential of some kind - there would need to be an Application for change of use for planning purposes. The building itself is part of the Listed Barbican Estate so there would be virtually no scope for changing the exterior of the building. 

Once it is clear that the current use can be changed, I would expect the promised consultation exercise to proceed.

[David Graves (your Alderman)]

Just to reassure you, the market testing regarding the hostel use for the building is not to assess the commercial viability of hostel use as a competing potential use to residential use, but rather to establish whether there is any market demand for a hostel use, the idea being that if there is no such demand, this will be evidence to support a change of use away from hostel use. The problems with the hostel use are well understood and without prejudging what consultation might reveal, I also suspect that local residents would strongly favour a change to residential use.

[Steve Daszko]

Surely the Y will end up becoming flats???

[Steve Daszko]

p.s. How will GL residents be consulted on this issue???

[David Graves (your Alderman)]

One we have established that there is mileage in a Planning Application to change the current Hostel use to "something else" we can then consult as to the alternative uses. If we can't change the Hostel use because the planning system won't allow this, consultation then becomes an exercise in wishful thinking.

So, stage 1 is establish whether change of use is a runner, which is a technical planning issue, and if it is then go on to stage 2 and consult. I don't believe anybody has yet worked out the form of consultation assuming we get to stage 2 (which I guess we will) but suggestions are very welcome.  

[Steve Daszko]

Thanks for clarifying the situation David.

[JM]

As I recall there were only two bathrooms per floor in that building (plus two non-working showers and three loos) in the central core by the lifts, and I think all the internal walls are concrete (they are in the corridors anyway).  I imagine it would be difficult and expensive to convert, even if we would all like to see it converted into flats and affordable housing.

I love modernism, but it's a bit of an eyesore and has very little to recommend it architecturally as far as I know.  Perhaps if they have no takers they will knock it down and start again! ;-P

[Chamberpot Bowell & Pond]

It was definitely listed along with the rest of the Barbican (the only bit that wasn't was Milton Court, that weird lonely space-station that got flattened to make way for The Heron, a much taller, more modern, featureless space-station).

I love the YMCA and I my flat looks right at it, sometimes I used to see silhouettes of dance students practicing in the windows. Did the guests of the Y really make much more racket than the howling, sobbing and vomiting City boys & girls, and "characters" outside the Shakespeare?

The concrete has aged in a much more elegant manner than the rest of the Barbi. I'm over the moon that they won't be knocking it down, if for no other reason than the lack of construction workers waking me up at 7.30am for almost the rest of my life.

[Chamberpot Bowell & Pond]

Second that. What should be done is to move some of those people off the council list, as you mentioned, and get them housed in the Y with a social rent. Stick em in the school next door to Basterfield as well. But you know that ain't gonna happen.

This estate is an oasis really, devised in a time of genuine Utopian thinking, and the dynamic social mix is something we should be very proud of I think. Problem with an oasis though is that eventually, elephants are bound to come and drink at it. If you see what I mean.

[David Graves (your Alderman)]

The concerns and fears are well recognised by me - the fact is that those who wish to take on the YMCA building on a commercial basis as "hostel"accommodation are not being closed out of the process and will be putting their case for the future use of the space. The concerns are well understood - but I do not think anybody is vetoing particular options, the question is how do the different propositions stack up. This will ultimately be a "political" decision of the elected Members based upon the outcome of the market testing exercise. I still think that the current exercise is an options appraisal although (rather gloomily) if there is a credible and commercial hostel offer the new planning policy does provide what seems to me to be a "presumption" that the existing hostel use should continue, rather than change. If that were to be the case, there would need to be very clear conditions to ensure that the problems I am well aware of are not allowed to continue under new management.