URGENT: we have three days left and we’re missing crucial support

Mr Vauxhall

URGENT CALL FOR HELP: Please share this page and pester your friends!

Those of you supporting our campaign will know that we need to provide evidence for each month since February 2006 to demonstrate that the Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been an LGBTQ+ pub and performance space for at least the last ten years. This is to ensure ‘sui generis‘ status is granted for the pub, helping to protect its use for our community.

THANK YOU for the hundreds of submissions that we’ve seen so far from scores of RVT fans. We’re close to making the sui generis a reality but we’ve hit a bump in the road.

We are massively under-represented in some of the months required to secure the sui generis from Lambeth Council.

In short: if we don’t dig through our shoeboxes and inboxes for evidence we could LOSE the Tavern. That’s the last thing we need this week.

Please don’t leave it up to your friends and colleagues to submit evidence. We need to hear from YOU – the punters, promoters and performers who can testify to the Tavern’s use as a performance space.

We need evidence covering each and every month since February 2006, and in particular the following months are now CRITICAL:

  • 2006: Feb, May, June, July, Sept
  • 2007: Jan, Feb, Oct
  • 2008: Sep, Oct, Nov
  • 2009: Jan, Feb, Oct
  • 2010: Oct

The deadline for submissions is on Friday 1 July at midday. We have THREE days to do this in. 

Even if you haven’t any evidence for the months that are critical, please submit for the months that you do. The more evidence we provide, the stronger Lambeth Council’s position on the sui generis becomes.

[Please note: we’ve been in touch with all the major LGBTQ+ publications and are working with them to submit evidence – but we need individuals to step forward too.]

Here’s what you need to do…

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.