As the sun sets on Cowley Street, Lib Dem Chief Exec Chris Fox emails party members with the HQ’s change of address and a brief look back, before taking “another big step for the party and our ambitious modernisation programme”. (He also includes a handy list of contact details for other parts of the party.)
Simon Cooper’s sneak-preview photos show that for LDHQ, the future’s bright:
Chris Fox writes:
Next week the Liberal Democrats are moving their Headquarters.
Since moving into Cowley Street in 1982, the party and its precursors have seen many changes in politics. Our HQ has been home to many successful campaigns, momentous by-election victories and most recently it was the theatre from which the coalition process was viewed by the media.
Many of us will have happy memories of the party’s history at Cowley Street, but if we’re honest, anyone who has worked here will know that this wonderfully historic building is not really suited to efficient working and good communications between our various teams.
I have been determined as Chief Executive that at the appropriate moment we would make the move to fit for purpose, modern premises and I am delighted that we have finally been able to make this a reality.
From Tuesday 30 August the Liberal Democrats will be based at:
Liberal Democrat Headquarters
8-10 Great George Street
London
SW1P 3AE [Map]The main switchboard number remains: 020 7222 7999
Our email address for general enquiries is: [email protected]The new Liberal Democrat Headquarters will be our home for the next General Election campaign and it offers all the advantages a modern campaigning party needs, as well as even closer proximity to Whitehall and Westminster. Our team will be spread across one open plan floor and we will have more meeting rooms available for staff, politicians and the voluntary party to use for party work. I know that our 70+ HQ staff are very excited about their new working environment.
Though I am pleased to tell you that our Trustees, led by Sir Ian Wrigglesworth, have negotiated a very good deal on our behalf, this move isn’t intended to save us money – it is in fact a fairly cost neutral exercise. I am confident however that it will hugely increase the effectiveness of our professional team and in doing so offer you a better service as members.
Last year, the Liberal Democrats entered Government for the first time in more than 70 years. This office move signifies another big step for the party and our ambitious modernisation programme. We are all now very much looking forward to the next chapter in our party’s history.
I look forward to welcoming you to Liberal Democrat Headquarters sometime soon.
Best wishes,
Chris Fox
Chief ExecutiveOTHER IMPORTANT PARTY CONTACTS FOR MEMBERS:
MEMBERSHIP ENQUIRIES: 020 7227 1335 / [email protected]
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION: 020 7227 1322 / [email protected]
ENGLISH PARTY ENQUIRIES: 020 7227 1368 / [email protected]
SCOTTISH PARTY ENQUIRIES: 0131 337 2314 / [email protected]
WELSH PARTY ENQUIRIES: 029 2031 3400 / [email protected]
NICK CLEGG: If you wish to contact Nick about his role as Leader of the Liberal Democrats or about a party matter or policy, please write to him at Liberal Democrat HQ:
LEADER OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
Liberal Democrat Headquarters
8-10 Great George StreetLondon
SW1P 3AEAlternatively you might like to email him at: [email protected]
To contact Nick regarding his role as Deputy Prime Minister or about an element of government policy, please write to him at:
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2ASPlease be aware that correspondence sent to this address or to Nick at the House of Commons is managed by the Government Direct Communications Team, not the party.
SOME PRACTICAL POINTS:
All party phone numbers and email addresses remain the same.
Mail sent to Cowley Street will be forwarded so don’t worry if you have recently used the old address on literature or sent anything to us.
Local art workers should update their national imprints on locally-produced literature, websites and email footers to incorporate our new address.
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12 Comments
Judging by Simon Cooper’s “sneak preview photos”, it would seem that the party’s blue – sorry, ‘aqua’ – colour does not feature in the internal decor of the new HQ.
Is it safe to assume that this corporate colour scheme has been quietly dropped?
Hopefully. Maybe a Yellow B*****d came up with the new look?
From the Indy –
“The relaunch is serious. Collette Dunkley, a PR guru specialising in targeting women, has been hired as marketing director to spearhead a research project into potential Lib Dem support at the next election.”
“Ideas already being floated for the Lib Dems include embracing Twitter, more interviews in glossy magazines, and using the party’s distinctive yellow more prominently, as research suggests it makes adverts more memorable”.
I think the colour scheme and broader PR direction of the party may well be down to her. I think it looks really good. We just need to make sure we have the policies to back up the new look.
@Greg Judge – “policies to back up the new look”. Shouldn’t it be the other way round?
depends how you look at it, our policies are our foundations and our substance whilst the PR is our front of house and primary route to interacting the public. The new look is representative of our political agenda whilst the policies are the current interpretation of that agenda so in one way the policies have to be representative of our constitutional agenda.
Similarly, the PR is what will raise public awareness and so has to be effective in its own right in order to attract people, however, bad PR can come from interested members of the public first becoming attracted to the party then deciding there was nothing for them behind the facade. Its rather like seeing massive hoardings being built in a city centre and hoping for something new and exciting but instead finding out that its just more offices, we need to have policies the retain interest after the initial attraction of our PR.
From the pictures, the new place seems to have the worst features of an open plan office. Desks close together without any acoustic panels to stop the noise carrying. Shiny ceiling tiles, potentially an acoustic nightmare! Flat screen panels on the walls, to distract people from their work. Most desks not near a window, so little natural light. And this is progress?
Why is everyone obsessed with aqua?
The 2009 colour palette has seven different colours in it – Yellow, black, aqua, dark red, light green, light blue and light grey. It’s a much more versatile colour scheme and looks much fresher and up-to-date than the 1980s black and gold look it replaced.
It’s still out there, I’m certainly still using it, and I can identify traces of it in the furnishings I see in those shots. They’ve obviously decided to use yellow as the main colour with the others as accents – which is perfectly sensible since yellow is the party’s main colour and always has been.
Anyway – the new office looks pretty swish. Impressive!
I agree that those desks don’t look very user-friendly. Open plan can be fine – but everyone needs their own territory.
Irrespective of colour, open plan design or whatever other niggle there is to complain about, I am sure that we would all like to congratulate HQ (I suppose no longer to be referred to as Cowley Street) on their new, upgraded offices and to wish Chris and his colleagues well. May as much success, more, flow from the new as it did from the old.
The new HQ looks a world away from the old Liberal Party headquarters when it was in the National Liberal Club in the decade before the merger.
There, in a warren of office partitions dividing what had been palatial Victorian reception rooms, could be found all manner of party members, in what became a sort of Liberal drop-in centre, and even members of the public who had wandered in (usually the kind who claimed to need to speak to David Steel at once as they possessed ‘secret information’), since there was no security in those days.
Temporarily homeless Young Liberals could be found sleeping in odd corners, Liberator was assembled with Cow Gum and layout boards at weekends on the table normally used for party committee meetings, extravagant green mould, whose origin one did not wish to discover, filled the urinals in the adjacent gents’ toilets, and one now prominent party commentator claims to have his shagged his then girlfriend on the office floor.
That’s what I call ‘fit for purpose’ premises!
Of course, if we hadn’t decided to pull in campaigns staff from the regions they support to London, or realised that a modern membership department doesn’t need to be based in Westminster, we’d need less expensive central London office space – and could offer people a decent salary for their part of the country, to work for the party.
Regarding the urgent loss of British Bees,where is the British environment minister,and why has nothing been done to stop this ?