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VIDEO: Church of Scientology planning £33 million Birmingham HQ

Anonycat

Crusader
BY LEE KENNY

Birmingham will be at the centre of a £33 million national network of Scientology training centres if proposals to open a new Midland HQ are approved.

The US religious sect, whose followers include Tom Cruise and John Travolta, have purchased historic buildings at five sites across the country, including Pitmaston House in Moseley.

It is set to be converted into the £6 million Hubbard Guidance Centre, named after founder L. Ron Hubbard. An application to convert the Moor Green Lane building is to be decided by the city council’s planning committee on Thursday - with officers recommending approval.

The controversial organisation has produced a glossy promotional film to advertise its new Birmingham base. The two-minute 40-second video, which includes computer-gendered images of the layout, states: “London may have been the hub of the old British Empire but Birmingham is, and always will be, the city that says ‘Working mans’ England.’’

The promo also reveals that the 1.4 acre site will include a Public Information Centre, a 140-seater chapel and a training centre named ‘Birmingham Academy’ which will boast a “full wing dedicated to Scientology counselling, known as Auditing”.

Complete Article: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/church-scientology-plan-moseley-birmingham-3573504
 

Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
Training center for WHO?

David Miscavige gets nothing but lies from his minions due to fear of beating, slapping and prison.

He does not really know that NO ONE is coming into any of his Idle Morgues!

This is karma - he is at Won't Look on the know to mystery scale - so he does not know! :wink2:
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
From http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/church-scientology-plan-moseley-birmingham-3573504:

"[ . . . ] while plans for a new centre covering the North-East were launched in 2007 with the £1.2 million acquisition of Windmills Hill, a large former Victorian school in Gateshead."

photo0071fj.jpg


Maybe someone could add a comment to the Birmingham Mail's article linking to https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/northumbria-idle-fire.91837/ showing how the cult has looked after the property (taken from this thread: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?28666-Vice-Magazine-Scientology-s-Countdown-to-Etermity).

Paul
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
They've already owned the building for a while. I bet it's already crumbling nicely.

Here's their detailed planning application...

http://connect.birmingham.public-i.tv/document/Pitmaston_House__123_Moor_Green_Lane__Moseley.pdf

You can see it on Google from the satelite image quite well but when you go into street view you can only see it from some angles, seen from the street itself it's blacked out which is appropriately dark.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=B1...&gl=uk&ei=0qKPUbv9JM3z0gWUr4CwCg&ved=0CH4QtgM

The whole 'Midlands county' is waiting with baited breath for the work to be done.
 

Anonycat

Crusader
The secretive Church of Scientology is to finally lift the lid on its £6 million plans for a listed mansion in Birmingham – seven years after targeting new headquarters in the city.

The American church, whose followers include Tom Cruise and John Travolta, is sending a representative to brief residents in a public consultation on the restoration of the former Pitmaston building in Moor Green Lane, Moseley.

The consultation days take place this Friday and Saturday at the mac in Cannon Hill Park – and around 720 leaflets have been sent out inviting householders to share their views. In September, the Church pledged to spend £6 million on a ‘complete and sensitive’ restoration to “bring the property back to its former glory”.

Complete article: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/new...urch-of-scientology-to-reveal-6million-290278
 

Anonycat

Crusader
Birmingham Scientology HQ Recommended For Approval

Birmingham City Council are due to discuss the proposed conversion of a mansion house in the city being converted in a Church of Scientology headquarters, the BBC have reported.

It is understood that the £6m conversion plan of the the Grade II listed Pitmaston House in Moor Green Lane, Moseley, has been recommended for approval.

Full Story: http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern_ireland_news.asp?id=162864
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
I was looking to see if the building shows any sign of work being done by looking on google street view. For some reason it is blacked out, the whole immediate area is black. I don't know anywhere else in the UK that is like that. You can move up and down the road outside RAF Brize Norton for instance which is a sensitive Air Force Base, Porton Down the home of Biological research (weapons of maths destruction) you can't, but you still see from the air. There is some kind of new block near the Idle Org, also blacked out, the penthouse suit is going for only half a million pounds if anyone wants to watch an idle org slowly fall apart.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/29781371

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=B1...uk&ei=QEGXUtqrGsrNhAfOlYDoAw&ved=0CIABELYDMAo
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
"Graeme Wilson, UK public affairs director said the building would be open to local people. The church currently has 118,000 members in the UK, 15,000 of whom are active participants."

I find this interesting. When they say "members" they seem to be including everyone who ever had any connection with the CofS, apart from Declared SPs presumably.

And when they say "active members" they mean people still on lines but the figure is still hugely inflated.
 

Anonycat

Crusader
"Graeme Wilson, UK public affairs director said the building would be open to local people. The church currently has 118,000 members in the UK, 15,000 of whom are active participants."

I find this interesting. When they say "members" they seem to be including everyone who ever had any connection with the CofS, apart from Declared SPs presumably.

And when they say "active members" they mean people still on lines but the figure is still hugely inflated.

In 2011, there were 2,418 scientologists in England and Wales, and less now, I suspect.

Scientologists in England and Wales were outnumbered by people who professed to be Jedi (176,632), Rastafarian (7,906), Heavy Metal (6,242), Druid (4,189), and Zoroastrian (4,105).
 

CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
BBC News: Scientology Gateshead building still empty after seven years

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-26936135



Excerpt:
_75419071_windmillhills.jpg



The Church of Scientology, famous for its Hollywood celebrity followers, once hailed its new home in north-east England as a centre for spiritual enlightenment. Several years on, the building lies empty and is a haven for squatters and drug users. So will it ever open?

The Windmill Hills former school and care home in Gateshead looks like the ideal setting for a ghost story.

Damp and derelict, the spooky Victorian day school sits at the mercy of vandals, squatters and the elements.

However, the Church of Scientology, which boasts among its followers Tom Cruise and John Travolta, paints a different picture on one of its web pages.

Beside a sparkling image of the Grade II listed building, the text says the church's new branch will be based in the building and aim to make northern England "strong, prosperous and enlightened". The date at the bottom reads 2009.

Keith Shevill sees the reality. He runs the Black Bull pub, which sits just in front of the former care home.

"I remember this years ago and it was actually a really nice old people's home," he said. "My uncle was actually in here and it was kept really, really nice."

But that is a distant memory as he looks across the car park strewn with old sofas, rubbish and used needles.

"There's always squatters, drug addicts, that sort of thing in there," he said.

"It's the whole area it obviously affects, because people know the building was a lovely old building and for somewhere just to go downhill like that, it's just a real shame."

The church still insists renovations will take place "in the near future", seven years since one of its followers first bought it.
 

Free Being Me

Crusader

Another building that $cientology may or may not fix up. With slave labor and all expenses leeched from their followers to "renovate" the building, a photo-shopped grand opening and some local political dupe invited for gravitas. Even after the theoretical opening, there won't be enough $cio's to fill the parking lot anyway. They aren't called Idle Morgues for nothing.
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
The article says there are only 62 Scientologists in that part of the country but the CofS says they need a larger building to cater for expansion!:roflmao:
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
"Graeme Wilson, UK public affairs director said the building would be open to local people. The church currently has 118,000 members in the UK, 15,000 of whom are active participants."

I find this interesting. When they say "members" they seem to be including everyone who ever had any connection with the CofS, apart from Declared SPs presumably.

And when they say "active members" they mean people still on lines but the figure is still hugely inflated.

Nearly right, you were right about how the overall members are counted, ie anyone who ever bought a booklet, whether they are alive or dead, then the smaller figure sounds like the ones who are not address unknown, people who bought a comm course and never did it, people who paid an advance payment to something and in days of extreme stat push people who did a test and left their address with the reg. The amount of address unknowns is also false as most orgs have backlogs of people to take off the mailing list. The numbers really are plucked out of thin air.
 
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