Hello everyone,

We wanted to just post our comprehensive answer to the rest of the forum concerning the status of build at Louise House.

Dear John

We will definitely consider a temporary solution for making the hoardings more attractive - a favourite suggestion that has been raised internally is to use the children's drawing designs of the garden that they have been proposing for the back space at Louise House.

Regarding the hoardings staying put, we have been hoping to start works on Louise House for some time now. As you know we were advised that we won the tender in March 2013, as yet we have still not entered into our formal lease with the Council. In fact, we are still waiting for a reply to comments made by our solicitors to the lease at the beginning of this year.

We have tried to chase this with the Council, but obviously they are very busy. What this has meant is that we cannot start making any real progress, we cannot apply to the Conservation Officer for permission to dig up the tarmac in the front and back gardens (the tarmac itself is listed), let alone start works, and we cannot actively pursue funding opportunities to fully accomplish this work.
It has been a frustrating time for us as well, but we are cheered by many instances of slow progress.

I do have further information from my colleagues to report, as raised in your previous email.

For building works: removing the tarmac from the front and rear gardens is going to require quite extensive and intrusive works involving heavy machinery, diggers, rubble removal etc . We are also planning to drill piles at stepped levels into the front garden to stop subsidence, evidence of which is in the front cracked wall abutting the pavement. Hoarding will be required for these works. As we have not known when these works could start, we believed it to be wasteful to take down the existing hoardings, only to have to replace them. We did not think it would drag on this long.

Regarding security: I understand your point about the pool side having no hoardings, but the spiked fence on that side is a reasonable security measure.
What made us particularly nervous was that in the spring of this year the Council cleared a number of buildings in the area of squatters. They were then looking around the area for new buildings to squat; we had to call the police three times in spring and summer this year.
Although they have not been seen recently, many artists have remained slightly nervous about security since there are no bars on the windows (and we cannot put any on a listed building without consent).

We did paint the hoarding gates a while ago in an effort to make them look better, we will look into more ways to make them more attractive, and will continue to work towards a future Louise House which no longer requires the hoardings.

Very best
V22