A council meeting that Ministry Of Sound said could have forced their closure has been postponed until October 11, after Southwark Council officers reportedly discovered an ‘administrative error’ just hours before the session was due to begin.
The planning meeting, scheduled for this Tuesday (September 15) had been called to finally decide if planning permission would be approved for a 22 story block of luxury flats to be built close to Ministry’s Elephant & Castle headquarters.
Chatting about the property development’s implications to BBC London Radio station 94.9 beforehand, Ministry Chief Executive Lohan Presencer said that Ministry’s 200 employees would lose their jobs as new residents moved in and objected to the nightclub’s noise.
"We have a very busy smoking area outside our club where there are probably a couple of hundred people at any one time chatting and mingling,” he pointed out.
"We also have queuing from about 10.30 in the evening till 2 o'clock in the morning. People start to leave the club from 4 or 5 in the morning, so there is a huge amount of noise … and that noise can peak to significant levels.”
"If I was paying upwards of half a million pounds for a 2-bed apartment, I'd expect it to be quiet outside – wouldn't you?" the Ministry boss added.
Days earlier, the club also threatened to sue the local council if the club is forced to close and predicted liabilities from the demise of Ministry’s global interests ‘would amount to many tens of millions of pounds’.
Meanwhile in North London, Islington Councillors approved plans to demolish the building that previously housed Turnmills, after property developers submitted new designs after being refused permission to destroy it in 2010.
Both English Heritage and planning committee member Councillor George Allan continued to resist the new plan, though Councillor Joe Caluori, vice-chairman of the planning committee, was unmoved.
“The building itself has historical significance but not in terms of the actual design, which isn’t fantastic,” he said at the meeting, “This (the new design) would be an appropriate building which would make a positive contribution.” (Islington Gazette:http://bit.ly/oYcNPJ )
Ministry of Sound celebrate their 20th birthday this weekend with three nights of parties.
Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff
