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Norwich venue The Owl Sanctuary to close after landlord switch
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 8 January 2016
A popular grassroots venue in Norwich is set to close on 31 Jan after ownership of the property changed hands last year.
In a statement on Facebook, Dan Hawcroft, who set up The Owl Sanctuary in 2014, reports that he found out over the Christmas break that he had a new landlord, following a sale of the building he rents last summer. His current lease on the space expires in March but, according to Hawcroft, there had been a verbal agreement with the previous landlord to extend the venue’s tenancy. That is now not seemingly possible.
Hawcroft says that the new owner of his building, Richard Pratt, owns the neighbouring property where he plans to build new flats. He reckons Pratt only bought The Owl Sanctuary site, at an above market rate, in order to overcome planning problems for the new residential development.
Pratt told the Eastern Daily Press that he doesn’t currently have any specific plans for his new purchase, and that he’d have been happy for The Owl Sanctuary to stay in the space beyond March, though it’s not clear for how long. Given the planned residential property next door, you suspect Pratt wouldn’t want a music venue in there permanently, and Hawcroft said he’d need some long-term commitment to consider investing more time and resource into further developing the venue.
Back on Facebook, he wrote: “Due to this bullshit I am currently in a position where I have invested a crazy amount of time and money in a venue and now have no clue about my future prospects or security for my family, nor do my friends who work here and have done for two years since the day we got the keys and started painting by iPhone torch as the power wasn’t back on”.
He went on: “So all we ask is please support us as much as you can until our closing date to help limit the financial damage this arsehole will inflict on us, not to mention the damage to the local music scene, grassroots touring and even the Norwich Soup Movement who are based upstairs here at The Owl”.
Of course, The Owl Sanctuary is one of a number of grassroots venues in the UK that has faced closure in recent years due to rent hikes, landlord changes and planning issues.
Hawcroft told the EDP: “We created one of the most respected DIY venues in the country. We did the first ever sold out gig by Slaves and we’ve had bands from all over the world, such as Japan and Brazil. They have come because they loved our ethos and what we are trying to do here. There’s some great bands coming up in Norwich and if they’re not nurtured at grassroots level, how are they ever going to break out?”
