Except buildings aren't self repairing like the glorious human body... Buildings need love attention and careful planning. Lucky for us the Scis have none of this so the building ownership will probably be revoked for their neglect.
With the tarp on and repairs underway, they should start thinking about drying the place out inside, and keeping a background level of heating and ventillation. All the soaked-in damp isn't going to help the structure especially if we have another freezing cold winter like the last one. It doesn't look like they care much beyond the the more obvious immediate peril and outward-facing shame. If only they'd had on-site 24/7 security then they wouldn't have had to do all this needless structural remedial work. I guess this is scientology - soldiering on and upwards...on a downward moving escalator.
Being a scientologist in NE England must be a barren, withering experience. At least the nuts at the big US bases can look around at the flashy buildings, and the drones who look like they're doing something important. It must be easier to believe something's actually going on.
and it's not as if they can turn to other UK "ideal" org projects for inspiration. I mean, just look at them. Pitiful. Plymouth and Manchester are like early versions of Northumbria, with no planning permission and no start in sight, well on the way to becoming their own crumbling regional eyesores. Birmingham they got lucky and it was a tidy functioning building but all the money from the surrounding excess land sale seems to have been "embezzled" out instead of being ploughed back into the org for the renovations thus taking a step backwards. With one or two idiot donars and a handful of chump change at the last fundraiser, they will be lucky to cover the basic ongoing costs of simply owning the building, yet they are the best hope. It must be terribly disheartening, all this repeated incestual regging for funds... and for what? Then to hear distant news of the Jaffa org, well on the way to being completed, only to be orded for foreclosure, it must make them wonder at times just what kind of pudknocker organisation they got themselves roped into. They should consolidate, do a deal with John and Ted on their failed hotel business, and move everything into Camleot Castle. It would be "magical". (sorry Tintagel) .
The London Ideal Org is the flagship they have to emulate across the country with its 270K GBP subsidy per year generously donated by the good people of Great Britain in recognition of their charitable contributions to British society. Dear scientologists, the people of Great Britain love you and value your efforts and are willing to dig deep into their pockets to help you continue making your valuable contributions to British society.
Well its been a couple of months since tarp and scaffolding tech. Did they fix the roof properly I wonder? They better hope so because gusts of 70-80mph (SW) have been forecast for the North East region overnight.
Company doing repairs. Redfern Building services Ltd Director Paul Redfern. http://www.truthaboutscientology.com/stats/by-name/p/paul-redfern.html Coincidence??
There was another day of extremely high gusting winds this week. In scotland and the north of england they hit 80-90+mph. Also the first real cold snaps have started. If this is what David Miscavige means by unprecedented expansion then over the next few months the moisture inside the building will freeze and expand. More bits of plaster as well as more serious masonry will start to loosen and crack off during these repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Unprotected joints will split and make load-bearing structures become unstable. The building is probably already beyond economical repair and the question after this winter will be weather the whole thing including the land value is going to be a write-off (if it isn't already the case).
This is the one with sinkholes in the parking lot, right? Lots of mining there in the old days, I heard.
This is an important, priceless historical building, I am sure that Scientology will spare no expense to restore it.
Drove past yesterday and I cannot see any visable signs of it being touched since the last time I was down , tarp's are loose and flapping about a bit LOL .
Idiots. Thanks for the update charlie. Any chance of a pictorial record for posterity? Here's a bribe View attachment ideas-for-christmas-wedding-cakes-with-traditional
LOL had my hands full at the time with the stearing wheel but bound to be in the area soon or over christmas .
I would like to raise a glass to Scientology, for making our jobs easier. At cause over MEST.... yeah right....
This thread shows how completely the cult fails in the north-east of England. - Not the fact that their 'ideal org' is a hopeless, empty, crumbling, neglected, unusable building - the fact that all we feel the need to do now is sit back and enjoy the fail. And thanks to charlie's recon missions, we can! Cheers charlie!
Hate to see a nice old building be the cult's next victim, but enjoying the fail from over here in Oregon anyway.
More high winds forecast for today in the N.E area. Storm force they say. 70-80mph gusts. There Will Be A Great Flapping o Loofe Tarpf, Yea Verily.
Saw a man in high-vis pointing at the tarp an hour ago. Went past on main road, no point stopping; no camera. The tale of the tarp trundles on . . .
There was some quite cold weather in the UK this weekend. A few degrees below zero. I can almost hear the damp freezing joints and cracks in the old building splitting and crumbling further. Oh wait... that could be my knees.
Investment: something to own thats more solid than currency. inb4 eurozone jokes wrecked building can be owned/derilict for years <editorialising>so the ideal org in Gateshead.. is now a derelit asset on the balance sheet of someone who's so rich they hardly care</editorialising>
LOL "Fire Sale, at this price will not last long!" (or in this condition, heh. "Fixer-upper" doesn't quite describe.)
There's no date on the page itself but a google search pegs it at 30th November 2011. The big question is: Is the property title still under the name of scientologist and estate agent Richard Pickles or was it transferred to one of scientology's entities? I'm thinking that because it always has been a liability, like all these places are until renovation work actually starts for real, then this heap of singed crumbling pile of damp bricks is more likely to still be in Pickles' ownership. We need a photo of it with the For Sale sign for our archives of UK scientology fail. Also, remember that in the Ideal Org football contest last year it was the Sunderland/Northumbria team that won something like $20,000 to go towards their Ideal Org renovations. That was probably all spent on roof scaffolding/tarps, and now they aren't even going to have an Ideal Org. Maybe they have their eye on another building that they can buy and let fall apart over 4 years or so.
