We need you to submit evidence to Lambeth Council’s public consultation.
The Royal Vauxhall Tavern is now under fresh threat from the building’s owners, property developers Immovate, who are planning to sell the Tavern.
The Grade II listing we fought for last year protects the Royal Vauxhall Tavern building, but not its use. The scope of the current council classification for the building would potentially allow the RVT to be sold and converted into an All Bar One or a Wetherspoons.
RVT Future have applied to Lambeth Council for another layer of protection that would unequivocally specify the RVT’s use as an LGBTQ performance venue (image above: the planning notice put up by the council). Lambeth Council began a public consultation that will end on Friday 1 July. They are looking for evidence of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern’s continuous use, for at least the last ten years, as an LGBTQ pub and performance space.
We need at least one piece of evidence for each month since February 2006 (though older proof is helpful too).
We need to hear from punters, promoters and performers who can testify to the Tavern’s use as a performance space. We want evidence of as many shows as possible over the years. Best of all would be contracts or emails confirming you hired the venue, were paid to perform there or tickets/receipts for events that included performance.
We urgently need the following:
- Tickets / stubs for shows
- listings
- press articles
- experiences and testimonies – from performers and punters
- photos of shows
- videography
- ticket receipts
- flyers and promotional materials
- personal stories backed up with data…
…anything that can we date to a particular month in this ten year period.
Please email your evidence, along with an explanation of your involvement with the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to Rowena Folkes at Lambeth Council – RFolkes@lambeth.gov.uk and make sure you CC in hello@rvt.community before midday on Friday 1 July.
This case number should be included with all submissions: 16/02418/LDCE
Remember, this is a public consultation – so any evidence you submit will be within the public domain.
Together we can create a definitive record of what we all know to be true – that for the last decade and beyond, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been a fabulous, sweaty, culturally important performance venue and home to the LGBTQ community and its friends, and it deserves to be so far into the future.