Really bad news for BBC Music

Really bad news for BBC Music

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norman lebrecht

May 06, 2020

English Heritage has just granted Grade 2 protected status to the BBC Maida Vale Studios, which the Corporation had put up for sale.

The listing will knock as much as £100 million of the sale price as developers cannot turn the site into luxury apartments.

Really bad news for the BBC’s mismanaged property portfolio.

And for the BBC Symphony Orchestra which was looking forward to new premises.

By delaying for years, the BBC has totally mismanaged the sale of this asset. Bad, call, Tony Hall.

Comments

  • Jan Kaznowski says:

    It’s a dump – started life as an ice skating rink. Can’t see why it should have a protected status.

    So what could be done with it?

  • M McAlpine says:

    Always amazes me thew properties that are ‘listed’ by conservation maniacs when they could be used for better purposes. I suppose this will now just be left to rot?

  • Dave says:

    Jan’s right. It is a dump. It should have been flogged off years ago before several wasted refurbs.

    Still, has the thing at Stratford got any further than a hole in the ground?

  • Mathias Broucek says:

    Just why?!!!!

  • Allen says:

    I’m going to demolish my garden shed before English Heritage decide to list it.

  • Elizabeth Lloyd-Davies says:

    Do you have any good news !

    The BBC 3 composer of the week and John Suchet’s Saturday eveing 9 o’clock programmes are high spots for Beethoven lovers…..

    Can we have more music on TV please ?

  • Oliver says:

    “The listing will knock as much as £100 million of the sale price as developers cannot turn the site into luxury apartments.”

    This is nonsense. For example, Battersea Power Station is Grade II listed, and is being redeveloped in this way right now.

    • Wurtfangler says:

      It has taken 40 years for anything to happen to Battersea Power Station, and that is with the acres of ugly non-descript walls of glass hiding it from almost every view, which the developers maintain was the only way to fund the redevelopment of the power station building itself. And that was with an iconic building. I doubt anyone would recognise the Maida Vale studios in any identity parade. Is it really worthy of this protection?

  • Is there an appeal/revocation process for these designations?

  • Plush says:

    Not a bad thing at all because hopefully an excellent music recording studio is saved. Many excellent facilities have fallen because of developer’s greed.

  • Ted says:

    I don’t see why it’s bad news to preserve our unique heritage – both Historic England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport agreed with the petition, in the face of BBC opposition. They are already planning to move to Stratford so the Symphony Orchestra will have a new home. The BBC are a public service broadcaster, not a property asset management company. 10,000 signatures on a Change.org petition were in favour of saving the studios.

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