A leading Filton-based brass band claim they have been ‘evicted’ from the Filton Community Centre building at Elm Park which they were using for rehearsals.
Filton Concert Brass say they are now ‘homeless’ and are seeking to return to St Andrew’s Church temporarily.
The band say that the dispute centred on an issue with storage of instruments. They say they had agreed storage arrangements before beginning the hire last year.
Filton Community Centre say they had granted permission for ‘a few’ instruments but not ‘xylophones, big drums and everything else’.
A spokeswoman for the band said: “We have been told out of the blue that we are no longer welcome at Filton Community Centre, which has been our new home since January and we have been told to remove all our equipment with immediate effect, giving us no time to make other arrangements!
“Last year we moved into St Andrew’s Methodist Church which was really great, however there wasn’t quite enough room to store our equipment so Filton Community Centre invited us to consider their upstairs room to rehearse in and told us that there were several options open to us to store our equipment.
“Members from our committee met with members of their committee and we were shown round the FCC and shown the rooms which they thought would be suitable for us to hire on a permanent basis.
“Members of our committee had an in-person meeting with their full committee and sorted out the details, terms of hire etc
Two members from the FCC committee also came over to St Andrew’s to look for themselves at our equipment to check it would be okay to fit in their suggested storeroom. All was agreed and arrangements were made for the band to make FCC our new home.
“We were hiring the FCC twice a week and we also booked the entire venue for our concert two weeks ago and they asked us to do a joint concert in the summer.
“We thought we had a good relationship with them. We paid our hire fees straight away etc
“All was going well until earlier in March when our Band Manager received a phone call from their Chairperson, accusing us of using their storeroom without the consent of the Committee or Trustees.
“She said that no such agreement had ever been made and that was her office and she demanded that we remove our equipment with immediate
effect.
“Later we received a message from a member of staff confirming that the band was no longer welcome in any capacity and we needed to remove everything instantly and not come back!!
“We had no choice but to gather a small group of us to go to the FCC to remove our equipment out into the carpark while two of their committee members and a staff member watched over us.
“We are now in emergency talks with St Andrew’s Methodist Church to see if we can move back to our original home as Filton Concert Brass now finds itself with no home.
“Filton Concert Brass has worked hard this past year to relocate back into the heart of Filton and be a part of the community.
David Gillard from the centre said: “There was permission granted for a few instruments, not two xylophones, three big drums, and everything else.
“We agreed a few things but we could not tolerate them taking over one complete room. They took over our office.”
“There’s two sides to the story, they wouldn’t have got it all in one room.
“It was not agreed, and we can get out trustees together to prove it.”
Pictured above, band members removing their instruments