The Stage

Members aim to block planned demolition of Dialhouse, Sheffield

Published Tuesday 22 February 2005 at 13:15 by Jeremy Austin

One of Britain’s best-known social clubs The Dialhouse Working Men’s Club in Sheffield will be demolished and replaced by flats if a planning application submitted by its owner is accepted by the local authority.

Bar 24, owned by Doncaster businessmen Martin Blagden, Mick Murray and Lloyd Nicholson, made an initial application for housing on the site when it first took over the club in May 2003. This was turned down but the local authority is set to decide on a new submission in April. One estimation puts the value of the site at £3 million, should permission be granted.

Opposition to the move is strong. The Dialhouse Community Resource Development Group was set up by club members in 2003 shortly after the first application was made. Leading campaigner Geoff Dawson said the club could be run successfully with a modernised business structure. It was facing mounting debts last year after struggling against brewery loans and creditors bills totalling more than £300,000.

Said Dawson: “I initially became involved in the Dialhouse situation acting purely in an advisory capacity. It soon became clear to me that we were running an antiquated 19th century Victorian organisation. The club simply cannot be allowed to run as it has been in the past. The problem with most clubs of this type is that they have forgotten to leap a century and have little idea of how a modern leisure business should be managed.”

Dawson is enjoying support for his plans by many members, who see him as responsible for the writing off of many of the club’s debts. At the club’s annual meeting last month a new committee was elected from among the membership. Already decisions have been made to rescind the venue’s Working Men’s Club status and to open membership to women.

The committee has also decided that the venue should remain a member of the Club and Institute Union. Previous club secretary Keith Chapman will remain in his post and will continue to book all cabaret through his company Cee-Bee Variety Agency. As yet, however, no decision has been made on a proposal to change the venue’s name to The Dialhouse Community Resource Centre.

Support for the centre has come from local MP Helen Jackson and from MP in the neighbouring constituency Richard Caborn. Sheffield councillor Janet Bragg has also publicly voiced her objections to the planning applications made by Bar 24.

Added Dawson: “The Dialhouse has a lot of influential friends in the local community and club-goers have heard of us across the length and breadth of the UK. It has been a very famous club in the past but can become even more illustrious in the future if all our plans come to fruition.”