ELMFIELD HOUSE UNDER THREAT

12.00.00am GMT Wed 11th Dec 2002

Last night Tories sneaked in the first public reference to their plan to sell off Elmfield House, an important 18th century listed building in the heart of Teddington.

Teddington Ward Councillor Martin Elengorn says An Environment Scrutiny report on Budget Strategy from Cllr Nicholas True casually slipped into para 3.4.3 the following, "Assuming Elmfield House is disposed of and staff move to the space vacated in Sheen Lane Centre by September 2003, £25,000 running costs will be saved."

Martin continues "At the last Council meeting I asked a supplementary question on Elmfield House when quizzing Nicola Urquhart on civic heritage. She knew of no proposal to sell."

"Elmfield House is not only of great historical and architectural interest but is an important part of our little civic complex with the Library adjacent."

"The Tories go on about civic pride but this bit of proposed asset stripping gives the lie to this empty bombast. Of course Councillor True was not at the Scrutiny Committee to defend his proposal."

"This is particularly ill-timed as the Teddington Society Historical Research Group is just putting out a book on Elmfield House and its history."

Note to Editors: Martin Elengorn earlier this year proposed a blue plaque on Elmfield House to mark its occupation in the 1860s by Alexander Herzen, the Russian socialist who is the main character in Sir Tom Stoppard's new trilogy "The Coast of Utopia"