Save The Picket!!!

• 10th Mar 2004

Please support our campaign to save the Picket Music Venue and the Pinball Wizard recording studio in Liverpool. Time is running out.

As you may be aware the Management Committee of the Peoples Centre in Hardman Street, Liverpool, where the Picket Music Venue and Pinball Wizard Community Recording Studio are housed, has decided to sell its premises. At this stage, three offers have been made to buy the building, the lowest being £2.1 million.

The Peoples Centre Management Committee will make a decision soon regarding the sale. Mr. Braddock, the Co-ordinator of the Peoples Centre, will recommend to sell the building to the highest bidder, regardless of the impact on the City of Liverpool. This will mean the closure of the Picket, Pinball Wizard studio and the cessation of our Dry Bar gigs for people under 18.

The Picket has existed for 20 years, putting on gigs for local bands,
providing recording facilities and advice for new bands, and benefit
concerts for a wide range of community organisations.

HOW YOU CAN HELP NOW:

Could you please e-mail today Bob Braddock, the Co-ordinator of The People's Centre, <mail>, and Mick Whitley, President of the
Centre, <mail> ask them to respond to the following;

1) Do they intend to sell the Peoples Centre building to a private developer, the highest bidder and what do they consider will be the long term impact of this decision?
2) Have they considered the impact the closure of the Picket and Pinball will have on the local music scene, the thousands of bands that will lose out?
3) Have they considered the impact on the 28 people they will be making redundant?
4) Have they considered the impact on the hundreds of kids who attend the Dry bar?
5) Have they considered how this will look to the general public- who have voiced their concerns through the website?
6) Have they considered how it will look to the people of Britain -that the City which has been designated the European Capital of Culture 2008, is closing a music venue and recording studio that has, in the opinion of the people of Liverpool, served the City so well!

Bob Braddock and the Peoples Centre's Management Committee have a responsibility to be accountable to the Public- YOU.

Please act now if you value the Picket's contribution to Liverpool's cultural history.

For further information, see link