The Victoria Snooker Centre in Tunbridge Wells says it now accepts that it only has 5 months left in its ornate Victorian home, the Friendly Societies’ Hall in Camden Road (pictured below).
But the club appears more hopeful of getting the council’s help in finding a new home in the town, with Mike Martin MP describing the snooker centre as an “important part of the community.”
The way is now clear for the council to demolish the inside of the building as part of its estimated £ 60 million project to redevelop the Royal Victoria Place Shopping Centre.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, the Victoria Snooker Centre said: “We have accepted that we will no longer be trading at 7 Camden Road as of the 28th February 2027.”
The Snooker Centre concluded: “We are now working alongside Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and the MP of Tunbridge Wells, in which they have promised to help find us a new premises for The Victoria Snooker Centre.”
In response, Mike Martin MP posted on X (formerly Twitter): “I and Justine Rutland Deputy leader of the Council will be working hard to try and find another home for this important part of our community.”
A short video released by Southborough News on Youtube recently outlined how the club’s activities benefited a range of people in the town. Click here to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lr0QD5498Qc
In another short film after the May local election, Mike Martin MP and the Leader of the council, Ben Chapelard, explained what the RVP shopping centre development was aiming to achieve. Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gc0v-HshKlM
The Friendly Societies’ Hall has ornate ceilings (pictured below), but the government’s historic building experts recently ruled that the quality was not good enough to put the Hall on the national list of protected buildings, so removing the final block to demolition.
The council is expected to give final approval for the demolition and the council borrowing to pay for building the 3-screen boutique cinema and new restaurants in April 2027.
The total Tunbridge Wells Borough Council debt is estimated at £ 60 million, which will lead to around £ 3 million a year in interest and repayment costs, but the council says the scheme will “pay for itself” out of new shopping centre rental income and new car parking revenue.
i can’t believe that this building, with it’s very beautiful interior, is to be so casually sacrificed. This is despite the work of the Civic Society which shows that the cinema could be built without destroying the snooker club by making adjustments to the design . It’s an absolutely shameful case of failing to honour working class heritage. The Friendly Societies’ Hall is a rare example of a building that was set up for the common good through the efforts of ordinary people. We should be celebrating our good fortune that it exists and has survived when it is so easy for the centre of town to become a boring characterless desert full of identikit buildings. Preserving the facade just proves that the architects understand the wrong they are doing. This is the way that the town ends up like a theme park or a film set, in the way that the Crabbe Memorial building has been treated… all collective memory of what it was and what it represented has gone. The snooker club serves a section of our community. Instead of devaluing that it could develop that role. We want to encourage community engagement in Tunbridge Wells. Why should this functioning community be turfed out? Why shouldn’t those beautiful rooms serve ordinary people as they were designed to do? It is very disappointing indeed to see such an inflexible and high handed attitude to an important part of our heritage.
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I can’t see how the sums add up for it to “pay for itself”. The loan is, unusually, to be on a 50 year term. We already have 2 cinema offerings in Tunbridge Wells and attendances are down and falling. The final cost figure will be much higher for sure. No major building project by TWBC has come in on budget and Calverley Square was cancelled when the costs ran away.
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