Help us protect Harmony Hall

Waltham Forest Labour, including High Street candidates have launched a campaign to help protect Harmony Hall as a community space. 

What’s happened?

Harmony Hall has been a beloved community space run by local charity CREST since 1999, hosting mental health support, day care, and various community groups. But the owners have forced CREST out by nearly tripling the rent — from £25,000 to £65,000 a year — leaving all those groups without a home. The Labour Council is helping CREST find alternative spaces.

Harmony Hall’s owners have effectively removed the site from community use. Local planning rules protect the space from becoming housing but we want to secure its future as a community asset.

Actions, not words

Andrew, Jeremy, Osaro and Zia have written to the Harmony Hall owners to express anger at their actions, and to request confirmation that the building will be brought back into community use as soon as possible.

We are working with community groups to explore making Harmony Hall an ‘Asset of Community Value’, which would require the owners to give community groups an option to buy the hall if it is ever sold.

Cabinet Member for Stronger Communities and Hoe Street councillor, Andrew Dixon says: 

“The Labour Council has helped CREST to find suitable alternative sites from which they can operate, and supported affected community groups by signposting them to alternative community spaces that might have availability.”

“However, we are deeply disappointed by the decisions taken by Shaftesbury Group. This much-loved community asset has been removed from community use by their actions. We need stronger protections, including making spaces like this Assets of Community Value, to protect precious community spaces like this.”

Add your name to nominate Harmony Hall as an Asset of Community Value

What has happened with Harmony Hall: the facts

  • Harmony Hall is owned by the Shaftesbury Group, a large national charity with income of over £65 million per year.

  • A Charity Commission ruling, delivered after a long legal battle, prevented the Group from selling the building and confirming that the building must be used for certain charitable purposes.

  • The Shaftesbury Group then demanded a huge rent rise, from £25,000 per annum to £65,000 per annum, forcing CREST and community groups to leave.

  • Any change to the use of the building away from community provision would require planning permission

  • Local planning policies provide strong protection for community spaces like Harmony Hall.