Reclaim Mecca Bingo Building in Taunton for Civic & Cultural Use

Our Most Important Objective

About This Campaign

Since 1932 this building in Corporation Street has always been a place where people meet and digest entertainment and culture and was the civic pride of Taunton.

Over 7 years ago a local man Jim Laflin and his volunteers campaigned to reclaim the Mecca Bingo Hall for the community (it use to be called The Gaumont). Though great strides were made and the local council agreed support it never happened as the Rank Company who own the building did not want to sell. We have yet to have talks with them again but with the increase of online Bingo and the drop in visitors this may be the right time to reclaim once again. While our team start these talks, we want to collect responses from those who support the reclaim so we can build a case for the community and start fundraising.

If you have never been in this amazing building, who use to show big names of the past such as The Beatles, David Bowie and many more, you should as its one of Taunton’s greatest treasures. We want to bring back civic pride and take the baton from Jim Laflin and campaign once again to make this venue the best entertainment and community space local and visiting people will love.

The Quick How & Why

Negotiations, Feasibility & Funding

Here’s a quick whistle stop tour of the how we intend to kick start and run this campaign.

First we get supporters of all types to sign-up. We bring professionals on-board to assist in negotiations, feasibility and investment strategies. We launch new talks to get council support. We will actively seek private and public investors to help raise funds.

We offer local people a piece of the pie e.g. the population on Taunton Deane is 110,000, if 50,000 people invested in £100 each we could raise £5m and we would seek match funding from other funding bodies. Though we do not know the selling or refit price we do know its estimated between £5-7m. Compare that to a new theatre build that would cost £10-12m is makes sense to bring back Mecca to the people.

Please note that we have yet to convince the Rank Company to sell and Mecca’s member’s will not be affected as campaigns like this takes years to achieve so we are here for the long term. However, in the past it was rumored that money from the sell might be used to build a new bingo facility in Taunton.