00:00After what has been an incredible fundraising campaign, Walton Picturehouse say they are so close to reaching their target to
00:10buy the building, to put it back in the hands of the community and become a vibrant part of Walton
00:18once again.
00:18We've got until the 8th of May. We set the target of £450,000, which is enormous, which is what
00:24we needed to buy this beautiful old building and give it to the community to run it. We are currently
00:31just touching £440,000. We're about £10,000 short.
00:34The group behind the campaign say they are so grateful for every single donation, no matter how small or large.
00:42And one particularly large donation was even done on a toying course.
00:47A guy called Harry Crampton donated £100,000 and that was unbelievable. We've had £25,000 from the Ken Dodd
00:54Charitable Foundation, which is brilliant. We've had quite a few people, like a handful of people, giving £10,000 and
00:59£5,000. But what's blown us away is the 10s, the 20s, the 50s that have come in from everyday
01:05people.
01:06This, of course, is just phase one of the development plans for the Picturehouse, which is the oldest in Liverpool.
01:14Our plans are long term, so sort of create a bigger space at the front of the auditorium so people
01:21can use it for presentations, meetings, classes, meals, parties, whatever they want to use for. People have weddings here. This
01:30belongs to the community.
01:32It doesn't belong to me or any of the directors or any of us. It belongs to the whole of
01:36South Liverpool and we want them to get involved and them to use it.
01:39Work is set to begin this summer on the building and after that it will open up for films and
01:47also to be a huge part of the community here.
01:51I think that sense of ownership has been really, really important. Early on, someone, I can't remember who, came up
01:56with the tag, you know, it takes a village to raise a Picturehouse. It was Emily.
02:01But she came up with this tag that we unashamedly stole. But it does, like, and it's not just Walton
02:08Village. You know, it's not like, you know, if you live here, that's it. The whole of South Liverpool, the
02:12whole of Liverpool has come together.
02:14As Ian alluded to there, yes, that was my quote from the last time I was here. And I'm so
02:20happy that they've been able to use that to get people volunteering on part of their campaign.
02:27We need to shore the building up. There's some works that you're doing straight away. Everyone knows the electrics in
02:34here, the toilets here, the fire doors need redoing.
02:38There's lots of things that we need to do to get it ship shape and get it operable again. We're
02:42looking at the moment at sort of doing some work over the summer and then reopening for films in the
02:49autumn.
02:50And from then, we'll just sort of roll our way on. And from then on, we raise the money to
02:54make it the best small cinema in the world. Let's aim high.
Comments