Streatham Hill Theatre was covered in questions to Lambeth Council on 16th October 2024.

Item 7 of the 16th October 2024 Council meeting was ‘Questions from Councillors’ – see Item 15 on pages 12/13 of the ‘Final Council Questions and Answers Oct 24’ (PDF)

Here’s an extract:

Councillor Matthew Bryant to Councillor Danial Adilypour, Cabinet Member for Housing, Investment, and New Homes

Ruach City Church held their first service in the Streatham Hill Theatre on 30 June 2024. Despite having acquired the building in 2022, no valid planning application has been submitted either for change of use or listed building consent. Can the Cabinet Member advise me (i) what progress has there been in securing a planning application from Ruach City Church for their use of Streatham Hill Theatre; (ii) at what point will the Council consider enforcement action to ensure compliance with planning regulations; (iii) what steps have been taken to ensure the health and safety of those using the building?

Party: Liberal Democrats

Answer: In April 2024, Rauch City Church submitted a planning application for the change of use from a Theatre to a Place of Worship. However, as the submission is missing several key documents it currently remains invalid. This means that the validation of the application has been placed on hold until the necessary supporting information is received.

The Planning Department met with church representatives prior to the unauthorised use commencing and stressed the importance of providing the missing information to validate the application and is continuing to actively chase their planning agent for the required supporting information. Once received this will enable the application to be validated, consulted upon and assessed. If the Church fail to provide the required information to make the application valid, then the Planning Department will have to act proportionately in response to this breach of planning regulations.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the national regulator responsible for enforcing health and safety laws. On some occasions, responsibility is authorised to the local authority but would not be proactively inspected as per the HSE National Code of Practice which states that “proactive inspection must only be used to target the high-risk activities in those sectors specified by HSE or where intelligence suggests risks are not being effectively managed.” Therefore the local authority would respond to any complaints received as opposed to conducting proactive inspections. Due to the nature of the issues raised, the council will investigate this premises to understand the risk it poses.