London’s property system is failing its cultural venues – but a movement is underway
By Madeleine Blyth, Programme Lead, Platform Places
Why are so many thriving cultural institutions and community hubs in the capital under threat? And what can we do about it?
Tucked away around the corner of Leicester Square, movie-goers flock to the beloved Prince Charles Cinema (PCC) to watch arthouse, classic and hard-to-find films alongside new Hollywood releases. It’s one of the last remaining independent cinemas in central London – cherished as a cultural space, and thriving while mainstream cinemas have closed their doors in waves. That success comes with relatively cheap ticket prices, and a fun environment that brings Londoners together, welcomes sing-alongs and hosts Q&As and festivals.
Yet, it’s been fighting for its future. Not because of an unviable business model, but because the asset owner was seeking a redevelopment break clause that could leave the cinema homeless with 6 months’ notice and make rent hikes easier. Dialogue is now beginning, but the PCC’s fate still hangs in the balance.
© The cinema’s closure would leave a gaping hole in central London’s cultural fabric (image © Prince Charles Cinema)
© Image by Luke Dyson (MOTH Club)
Over in the East End, the iconic MOTH club has been a cornerstone of Hackney’s creative community since 1972. Hackney Council is considering a planning application to build residential flats next door – inevitably at odds with the club’s nighttime buzz, which MOTH fears could lead future noise complaints and potential closure.
“We can’t survive without making noise”
— Edie Kench-Andrews, General Manager, MOTH Club
Meanwhile, the wonderful (and free) Migration Museum is uprooting from Lewisham at the end of this month, unable to renew its lease in Lewisham Shopping Centre, where it’s welcomed people from the area and afar to exhibitions, events, education programmes since 2020. Now another property developer, Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia (who arrived in the UK as a child escaping Idi Amin’s Uganda regime), has gifted the museum a new landmark central London home for 60 years, rent-free, sharing the vision to put Britain’s migration stories at centre stage. This is a testament to how social impact is becoming valued over profit in a small but growing number of leases.
But the space won’t be ready until 2027, leaving the Museum and its carefully curated collection seeking another temporary space for the next two years.
“Repeated movement and uncertainty makes it extremely difficult to build sustainable teams and partnerships, or to plan ahead with certainty… Every time we move, it requires a significant amount of time, energy and resources.”
— Matthew Plowright, the museum’s director of communications and engagement told the Big Issue in 2023
The Migration Museum’s hosts a buzzing exhibition launch in February 2025 – one of the last before the doors close on its Lewisham location (photo by Platform Places)
Earlier this year, the volunteer-run Peckham Soup Kitchen was scrambling to find a new home to continue providing hot meals and vital essentials to around 400 local people a week. They’d been operating out of Aylesham Shopping Centre, where Berkeley Homes provided a year’s free use of an empty unit awaiting redevelopment (an important ‘meanwhile use’ solution more and more asset owners are offering).
Yet, they couldn’t find a longer term affordable space in time, and now they’re distributing food parcels from their van on Peckham Square while continuing the search. Although local authorities often have land and property connections, Southwark Council have nowhere suitable on their radar to keep the soup kitchen going.
© Peckham Soup Kitchen
All about the assets
This is just a snapshot. Countless more popular community and cultural institutions are under threat or in flux in the heart of high streets and urban neighbourhoods in London. It’s a similar story up and down the country; for instance, 171 grassroots music venues closed in the UK in the last two years (with Music Venue Trust championing the fight to save these spaces).
Why are so many bedrocks of communities shutting their doors?
When it comes to survival, it’s clear the primary challenge isn’t always revenue and margins. Many are flourishing, high-footfall venues. And new research from Power to Change shows a broader community business sector that’s financially stable, resilient and confident.
Time and time again, it’s about property – issues linked to the spaces they occupy and the contracts they’re constrained by, whether precarious leases, skyrocketing prices, planning challenges or land disputes.
What you can do in your community
What actions can you take to protect at-risk local assets?
1. Petitions and campaigns can move mountains
If there’s a place under threat that creates culture, care and community in your borough (or one you know), take 30 seconds to add your name to a petition. Better yet, start your own.
“We're delighted that over 160,000 people have now signed our 38Degrees campaign, which has encouraged the landlord to come to the table to discuss and negotiate the terms of the lease.”
– Ben Freedman, Managing Director, Prince Charles Cinema
2. Write to your MP
Many MPs want to show they’re supportive of community activities – and often have the power to unlock council partnerships, responses and funding, or raise the profile of Asset of Community Value applications and concerns over planning applications.
See Locality’s template email for contacting your MP.
3. Nominate the space as an Asset of Community Value
A community group can nominate a building as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) – a place of community significance or social wellbeing. If the local authority agrees to designate it as an ACV, this protects how a building is allowed to be used, even once it’s put on the market and changes ownership. Once listed as an ACV, the community can then enact the Community Right to Bid on the asset, which provides a 6-month period to try to raise finance to buy it.
Ivy House in Nunhead is London first community-owned pub and the first in the UK to be listed as an ACV. Dating back to 1879, and family-owned for decades, it changed hands to a pub chain.
When the chain announced intentions to close the pub and sell it to a property developer, members of the community came together to get it listed as an ACV, and raise £800,000+ to purchase it, through an Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF) loan, Social Investment Business Group grant and a community share offer with support from Plunkett Foundation and the AHF.
💡 While mechanisms like ACV can be powerful levers, they have limits. For the at-risk Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, ACV’s don’t prevent multi-million pound price tags that would saddle the local community with unsustainable debt. Mandates can also be interpreted in ways that fail to truly serve local interests.
4. Secure a Section 106 planning obligation
Councils have the power to make planning permission conditional on the developer making a contribution to local community infrastructure. That’s called a Section 106 agreement. For example, this can happen if the new development is expected to put a strain on resources (like more traffic) or intensify problems (like lack of affordable housing). The Section 106 grant scheme is open to all not-for-profit community organisations.
In 2009, Stour Trust transformed an abandoned Hackney warehouse, together with the local community, into a thriving community, arts and cultural hub.
Although the building became one of the first cultural venues in the country to be listed as an Asset of Community Value, after more than 10 years of occupancy Stour Trust lost it due to rent hikes and development plans. They spent 5 years looking for a long-term solution.
Eventually they made an agreement with a housing developer operating in Hackney Wick and Fish Island for Stour Trust to be their Section 106 partner, and agreed a 999-year peppercorn (rent-free) lease, double the size of their original space, in a new development.
Due to be completed in 2027, this will be a flourishing community and cultural hub, responding to the needs of those most impacted by gentrification, particularly Black and Global Majority communities.
From at-risk to community-led
There are immediate actions we can take to try and save at-risk spaces. Yet ultimately, the town centre property system in London – and at large – is failing the treasured venues and organisations that communities need in their local areas. The challenges aren’t just in keeping them alive, but in securing affordable buildings in the first place where new ideas can flourish.
What’s needed is a fundamental change in our property culture, including more community ownership and longer-term, secure leases. Community leaders, asset owners and local authorities are already building stronger partnerships and a shift in relationships, from dynamics of ‘us versus them’ to collaboration and trust – before having to resort to ACVs or Compulsory Purchase Orders.
Alongside this, we need investment that’s relational patient, ambitious and long-term, and values the social impact of cultural and creative venues, not just financial (like the example set by Kindred LCR).
This is a tall order, but communities across the capital are stepping up to show what’s possible:
Sister Midnight started in 2018 as a grassroots music venue based in Deptford. After being forced to leave their space during the Covid-19 pandemic, they launched a campaign in 2021 to create Lewisham's first community-owned music venue.
Yodomo Circular Hubs secured two sites in the heart of East London, providing low-cost sustainable materials for local makers and a place for businesses to take their textile ‘waste’ for re-use.
Wandsworth Town Property Partnership brings local stakeholders together to unlock multiple buildings for activities that promote affordability, sustainability, and community cohesion, supported by Platform Places and the National Lottery Community Fund.
That’s just a small glimpse of what’s happening around London. And all over the country, a new wave of local property stewards are stepping up as ‘Community Asset Developers’ and taking on multiple buildings for community benefit, from People Dem Collective in Margate to Civic Square in Birmingham, Nudge in Plymouth to Hastings Commons, Makespace Oxford to emerging Local Property Partnerships in Sheffield, Bristol, Newcastle and Liverpool.
These portfolios of community spaces, beyond one building alone, can boost capacity and resilience through economies of scale. Many of those pioneers are coming together in a national Mycelial Network, and calling for the funding ecosystem that’s needed.
National legislation is also changing, thanks in no small part to We’re Right Here, Power to Change, Community Land Trust Network and dozens more partners involved in campaigning for a UK Community Right to Buy and funding to support it. The devil will be in the detail, but the rights of communities to occupy and generate creative and cultural spaces look set to be stronger – with schemes like the Right to Rent (a last resort to address vacancies), and the UK Government’s £1.5 billion investment into 75 neighbourhoods (with a focus on community-led change and vibrant high streets, including arts, heritage and creative initiatives).
Protecting local assets can catalyse wider change
It’s clear: London’s cultural institutions and community venues are at risk and systemic change is urgently needed. But a country-wide movement for community-powered property is here, and funders and regional governments are starting to wake up to this.
Most importantly, this movement is nourished by every local effort, however small, to support our cherished spaces. So find your local music venue, museum or community kitchen; buy a ticket, become a member or trustee, help them crowdfund, and keep spreading the word.