Walpole Park Theatre: Council Debates Motion on 13 Oct

A petition against the Troubadour theatre in Walpole Park has passed the number of signatures needed to force a debate at full council.

Updated 11 October: the theatre plan is on the 13 October full council agenda, as an opposition motion rather than the petition. The Liberal Democrat motion for debate asks Cabinet to withdraw the Troubadour proposal and look at brownfield sites instead. It says the three petitions against the plan had 8,297 signatures between them when it was submitted. A Conservative amendment adds that the theatre must leave the park after three years. The meeting starts at 7pm at Perceval House; the rest of the agenda is in Ealing council this week.

Updated 9 October: the petition closed on 4 October with 5,250 signatures, according to the council’s e-petition list. It is not on the agenda for full council on 13 October. That meeting will debate a different public petition, on the council pension fund’s investments, which had 4,974 signatures, according to the published agenda paper. The next full council meeting after that is on Tuesday 8 December.

The council’s own e-petition page showed 4,461 signatures on the morning of Friday 2 October. Under Ealing’s petition scheme, a petition signed by 3,671 people goes to a debate of the Full Council. That figure is 1% of the borough’s population at the 2021 Census.

The petition is still open. It closes on Sunday 4 October.

What the petition asks for

The e-petition asks the council “to not progress the proposal for the new Troubadour Theatre development in Walpole Park”. It says its signatories support cultural investment in the borough, but not on this site, which it calls “inappropriate” for a historic Grade II listed park.

The lead petitioner gives these reasons:

• the scale and design of the building are out of character with the neighbourhood
• three and a half years is not “temporary”, and the petition says Historic England uses 28 days or less as the meaning of temporary for open spaces
• late-night shows, alcohol, litter, crowds, servicing vehicles, signage and noise
• the effect on families, sports groups and dog walkers of 1,200 people a day in the park
• harm to the park’s wildlife, against the council’s own Biodiversity Action Plan
• a conflict with Local Plan Policy G4, which says building on open space should be kept to a minimum

Those are the petition’s claims, not findings. The council has not yet responded to them in public.

Signatures and the threshold

The petition is far bigger than anything else on the council’s petition site. These are all the e-petitions open on 2 October.

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The other open petitions on the council’s list had these totals:

Will every signature count?

Not necessarily. The council’s petition scheme says anyone who lives in the borough can sign. A signature only counts if it gives a name, a full address and a postcode, and one without a borough address will not be accepted.

So the final figure after checking could be lower than 4,461. The petition currently sits 790 signatures above the threshold.

When the debate could happen

The 13 October agenda is now published, and the Walpole Park petition is not on it. Item 5, the public petition for debate, is a petition about the council pension fund’s investments.

The council’s meetings calendar shows the next full council meeting on Tuesday 8 December at 7pm. The council has not said the petition will be heard then. Its agenda should appear in the week before.

The scheme does not promise that the petition will be heard on 13 October. It says the council “will endeavour to consider the petition at its next meeting”. It adds that “the Mayor has absolute discretion as to when a debate petition should be taken to council”. It also says the council will normally send its substantive response within four weeks of receiving a petition.

The Walpole Park lease is not on the agenda for cabinet’s next meeting, on Wednesday 7 October.

Where the theatre plan stands

Cabinet agreed in principle on 9 September to lease part of Walpole Park to Troubadour Theatres Ltd for three and a half years. It was not a final decision. We set out the cabinet decision and the proposal in full at the time.

Three steps remain before a lease could be signed:

1. a statutory notice advertising the lease of open space for two weeks, which is the formal window for objections
2. a planning application, which will be referred to the Mayor of London
3. a final cabinet decision, with the objections in front of it

A full council debate does not overturn a cabinet decision on its own. It does put the objection on the record at the borough’s biggest public meeting, with a response from the cabinet member.

What it means for you

• The petition has closed. It finished on 4 October with 5,250 signatures, before any checks the council makes on addresses.
• If you want to watch the debate, it is not happening on 13 October. Full council next meets on 8 December. We will check that agenda when it is published.
• If you want to object formally, the petition is not the same thing as an objection to the lease. That window opens when the council publishes its two-week open space notice. We will report it when it appears.
• If you support the theatre, the same notice is the place to say so. Cabinet must consider the comments it receives.

Sources

• Ealing Council e-petition: Stop the Proposed Troubadour Theatre Development in Walpole Park, read on 2 October 2026, for the petition text, its dates and the signature count.
• Ealing Council, current e-petitions, read on 2 October 2026, for every other petition and its total.
• Ealing Council, petition scheme, for the 3,671 threshold, who can sign, the four-week response and the Mayor’s discretion.
• Ealing Council meetings calendar, for the Full Council meeting on 13 October 2026, and the cabinet agenda for 7 October.
• Cabinet minutes, 9 September 2026, for the in-principle decision and the steps that remain.