Sgss Park Avenue

[Tony]

Fateh

I have heard from a reliable source that the current committee of SGSS Southall, is trying to close Park Avenue Gurudwara. The site will be sold to ealing council in the very near future.

Can someone confirm this? Have any one heard this?

It will be a shame as it is quite a prime site, and if they need the money; then it can easily be raised on the property itself.

Well lets see if anyone knows about this first?

Fateh . . ..

BTW - Pls dont make this into a political topic.

[RebelSingh]

i live in luton, but have gone 2 southall since i was a kid, but can some 1 tell me WAT was the point in building the Havelock RD gurdwara, when there was already the park avenue one? also arent both of them named as singh sabha? plus it wud b sad 2 see it going, wat wud they build instead of it? they shud build sum sort of sikh museum/memorial or sikhi related centre, seeing as sikhs RUN and OWN southall for ages and will continue to.

[Harpreet1]

Sangat on that side of Southall etc attend Havelock and Broadway side you can attend Park Avenue. There are many Gurdwaras in Southall and they all have loads of sangat.

I heard that the Gurdwara might close too. So love going there.

[RebelSingh]

Sangat on that side of Southall etc attend Havelock and Broadway side you can attend Park Avenue. There are many Gurdwaras in Southall and they all have loads of sangat.

I heard that the Gurdwara might close too. So love going there.

Seen, well there are more than 40,000 sikhs livin in southall, plus all the illegal faujis der too, so yea it makes sense 2 have few gurdwaras, but its a shame sum hav been named after their tribes (ravidassi,ramgharia) and even afghan gurdwara too, sad. i always remember wen growing up n goin southall park avenue gurdwara, n bein towered by the Sant jarnail singh bhindrawale photos, the gurdwara may aswel hav been named 'Khalistan park avenue gurdwara'. Would be sad if its true

[West London Singh]

i live in luton, but have gone 2 southall since i was a kid, but can some 1 tell me WAT was the point in building the Havelock RD gurdwara, when there was already the park avenue one? also arent both of them named as singh sabha? plus it wud b sad 2 see it going, wat wud they build instead of it? they shud build sum sort of sikh museum/memorial or sikhi related centre, seeing as sikhs RUN and OWN southall for ages and will continue to.

The Havelock Road Gurdwara actually came first. Indeed it was the very first gurdwara in Southall so it should have been kept for historical reasons only. But of course, when it came to knocking one down and replacing it with a £20 or £30 Million showpiece one, anyone with common sense would have seen that the one in front of the graveyard and next to the block of council flats tucked away in early victorian tight terraced residential streets was not the right choice. But, as we keep seeing, common sense is the one thing that is always missing from our pardhans.

So...here's the situation we find ourselves in : We have a £30 Million mega modern Gurdwara in Southall that absolutely no non-Sikh visitor even knows about because absolutely no visitor to southall can even see it...given the fact that it is tucked away in the middle of nowhere.

The place this showpiece Gurdwara for the Sikh faith should have been built is of course the site of the one this thread is discussing : Park Avenue. This site, slap bang in the heart of Southall is seen by every visitor to Southall and, more importantly, by every single visitor from overseas that takes the Heathrow Express into London and every single person in Britain that takes a train into London from the west country. And yet...here we are....learning that our oh so enlightened pardhans want to sell this one off too. What that will mean is this.....This mega hub of overseas visitors in London....each day full of international visitors and tourists from all over the world as well as Asians from all over th UK...will have only 2 obvious places of worship visible to their eyes : The Hindu Temple on lady margaret and the Muslim mosque. We don't need no indian govt to finish us off. Our gurdwara pardhans are proving themselves quite capable of doing the job.

Honestly, I can't stress the importance of the last point enough. London is not Delhi, Amritsar or Toronto. It is the second most visited city on earth by overseas visitors. For much of the entire world....their one and only sight of a 'Sikh' and a Sikh Gurdwara in their life is the Park Avenue gurdwara their train carriage passes right next to on their way into central London from Heathrow. We are such fools that we can't even see how that gurdwara is the most seen gurdwara on earth from the perspective of non-sikh eyes.

Edit: Correction; OK I had my doubts after I wrote the above so just went away and done some research. I said London was the 2nd most visited city on earth by overseas visitors, behind Paris. In fact, the latest research (from January of this year) has shown that London recieves nearly twice the number of overseas visitors that visit Paris (a large proportion of Paris tourists being French themselves from other parts of France). Thus....THE most visited city on earth and the train from the airport to downtown doesn't just pass this gurdwara the train tracks are as close as your garden fence is to your kitchen. Thus this gurdwara is the one and only gateway and introduction to sikhism for much of the entire world....from all corners of the globe.

[RebelSingh]

The Havelock Road Gurdwara actually came first. Indeed it was the very first gurdwara in Southall so it should have been kept for historical reasons only. But of course, when it came to knocking one down and replacing it with a £20 or £30 Million showpiece one, anyone with common sense would have seen that the one in front of the graveyard and next to the block of council flats tucked away in early victorian tight terraced residential streets was not the right choice. But, as we keep seeing, common sense is the one thing that is always missing from our pardhans.

So...here's the situation we find ourselves in : We have a £30 Million mega modern Gurdwara in Southall that absolutely no non-Sikh visitor even knows about because absolutely no visitor to southall can even see it...given the fact that it is tucked away in the middle of nowhere.

The place this showpiece Gurdwara for the Sikh faith should have been built is of course the site of the one this thread is discussing : Park Avenue. This site, slap bang in the heart of Southall is seen by every visitor to Southall and, more importantly, by every single visitor from overseas that takes the Heathrow Express into London and every single person in Britain that takes a train into London from the west country. And yet...here we are....learning that our oh so enlightened pardhans want to sell this one off too. What that will mean is this.....This mega hub of overseas visitors in London....each day full of international visitors and tourists from all over the world as well as Asians from all over th UK...will have only 2 obvious places of worship visible to their eyes : The Hindu Temple on lady margaret and the Muslim mosque. We don't need no indian govt to finish us off. Our gurdwara pardhans are proving themselves quite capable of doing the job.

Honestly, I can't stress the importance of the last point enough. London is not Delhi, Amritsar or Toronto. It is the second most visited city on earth by overseas visitors. For much of the entire world....their one and only sight of a 'Sikh' and a Sikh Gurdwara in their life is the Park Avenue gurdwara their train carriage passes right next to on their way into central London from Heathrow. We are such fools that we can't even see how that gurdwara is the most seen gurdwara on earth from the perspective of non-sikh eyes.

WOW bro ur 100 % correct, cud u imagine WLS if the £20m havelock gurdwara was sittin where the park avenue was instead? Oh Lord, the tourists wud have a field day!

Plus, i didnt kno that haveleock gurdwara was 1st to b built, so i apologise there mate, gud points, this is why u r the stand out poster on this site, straight up.

[Southall Youth]

Park Avenue won't close I'm sure the commuter ain't that stupid there's been talk fir years about this say whatever but Sohi has done a lot in the last year more than the last commitee he's actually turned a new Panthic leave and he won't sell off park ave

[Tony]

Fateh....

Thanks for some constructive comments.

I fully agree that Common sense esp in Gurudwara Pradhans....... Oh well! enough said.

The problem here is that the Committe heads have made this decision of not just closing the gurudwara but selling the site for £xxxx to the local council.

I fail to understand what they need the money for. Now if they have any sense and the property is already freehold, they can easily rasie money on it rather than selling it. Everyone know that they will never be able to purchase that site again.

I am shocked at what is happening there. Esp when this deal is being done behind Sangat's back. I can assure you a high majority of people are unaware of this.

I support the idea that the number of gurudwaras should be reduced but then should be replaced with something else. Look at the church's. Even though they have closed for a long time, only a mere few have been sold.

I can only see one reason behind this sale. Their own pockets are being lined up ;-)

Nothing else.

And where is the STU*ID Opposition now. How come they are not taking any action?

[Tony]

One more thing!

Some very good thoughts on the heathrow express passing sthall and everyone else noticing this.

Cross Rail is due to start in 2019 and will stop at Sthall as well.

The land will become absolutely goldmine on its own. But lets sell it now before we can really benefit from it.

I can just see it being purchased by another Sect/Religion (Nothing against anyone) and doing everything that we could not do

Then we will say - why did we not think of that.

I am so so angggrrryy.............

[Angrez]

In the late 70's (I think) the Park Ave site was originally bought secretly by the old Beant/Baccittar committee and there were rumours they bought it very cheaply but lied to the sangat that it cost a lot more hence pocketed the difference. But then that’s nothing new. Obviously the committee had taken a large loan out for the purchase of the building from the Bank of Baroda.

Originally it was a supermarket and the pardhans said they only bought the site to generate money for a resale or develop a shopping centre and then sell. So they could then re-invest the money in Havelock Road which hadn’t had a facelift for decades. But once word got out of the scam, the committee was left with the Park Ave building as the sangat wasn’t happy with being duped. Eventually as happens committees change and the new committee refused to pay the loan and this started to spiral out of control.

By now it was 1984....and the new boys in town where the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) and they were young (very naive) and energetic and passionate and took over the Havelock Road gurdwara by force. People were happy (except for the die hard old committee members and their cronies). Remember this was the mid-eighties there was a big Sikhi revival and people wanted to see the new jujharoo movement.

Meanwhile, the old committee decided to sneak back into Park Avenue, as it was still an empty supermarket shell. They put some basic electrics, plasterboard and heating and hey presto it became a gurdwara for the old committee. It did get taken over at various stages by the ISYF and diwans were held regularly, any big panthic confs took place at Park Ave as it was bigger than Havelock Rd.

Years past and ISYF got thrown out by Beant/Bachitter Singh (sometime in the 90's) and Park Ave also got developed further. A deal by Sohi with the Indian High Commission meant the huge loan to the Bank of Baroda got written off...It’s useful to be friends with senior congressi's.

Then a major revamp of Park Ave occurred prior to Havelock Road being demolished and then rebuilt for £20million (well that’s what they said, although you ask any architect and they will say it should have only cost approx. £10 million). So some people made some good money on it.

It was hoped when the new Havelock Road was opened on 30 March 2003 that Park Ave would be closed or used for weddings/functions etc. But they have managed to keep both running.

Anyway that’s a very brief history and I hope I haven’t shown the pardhans in a negative light.