Did Wigan Council lie about why it let go of Haigh Hall's creative directors?

The massive renovation project was meant to be transformative for the town. Now, its future looks uncertain

By Jacob Hartley

Al Taylor and Al Holmes walked into their meeting with Wigan Council on 1st October in high spirits. They were expecting a four year extension to their contracts as creative directors for the renovation of Haigh Hall, a massive project aiming to turn the Grade II-listed country house, one of the grandest old buildings in the north west, into a cultural destination of national significance. By the time the meeting ended, Al Taylor was in tears.

“I mean — I was crying,” he says. For three years he and Holmes, long-time creative partners, had poured their hearts and souls into the hall’s renovation. Now they were being told it was over. Alison McKenzie-Folan, chief executive of Wigan Council, and James Winterbottom, director of strategy and innovation, informed the Als their contract was not being renewed.

Cue uproar. Within weeks, the granddaughter of the iconic Wigan painter Theodore Major, whose £200 million collection of artworks was intended to be housed at the hall, wrote of her dismay at the treatment of the Als and withdrew permission for the artworks’ use. Meanwhile the Friends of Haigh Hall took to Facebook, posting a lengthy statement. “So is Haigh Hall safe in the hands of Wigan Council?” it read. “We think NOT!”

The renovation of Haigh Hall, which the Als had worked on since 2021, was one of the largest in the country. They’d raised £20 million in Levelling Up funding, £21 million in Wigan Council match funding, as well as grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England. The project had come about after Wigan Council wrestled control of the hall away from its previous operators through a lengthy high court battle. “The people's palace is back home,” councillor Chris Ready had declared at the time. The Als, two highly respected surrealist filmmakers and visual artists, were seen as the perfect choice to take it forward.

Their aim had been to create a cultural destination of national significance in Wigan, which would house, among other things, Major’s collection of artwork. They’d also had contact with the Earl of Crawford, who wrote that, because of the work they’d done, he’d been “increasing inclined to lend items from [his] family collection”. No longer. The Earl, in a letter to the pair, described the decision to remove them from the project as “truly incomprehensible”, saying that he was no longer confident that any items he lent would be handled with the same “utmost respect and authenticity” he believed the Als would show.

Exactly what happened in that meeting on 1st October has been the topic of much dispute. Dismayed at having “no prior warning”’ before the meeting, Al and Al released a public statement on their Instagram, claiming that they’d been given “no comprehensible reason” for the decision other than it was for “political pressure” and “political concerns”.

Then things got even stranger. According to James Winterbottom, the Als weren’t telling the truth. In an interview with Wigan Today, he said that their claim they’d been dismissed for “political reasons” was only “one of the inaccuracies” in their statement, and that instead, a decision had been made on the grounds of “value for money” and “performance and delivery”. Moreover, an email sent by Alison McKenzie-Folan to members of the council also says that it was “not correct” that they were dismissed for such reasons.

In a statement to The Mill, Wigan Council said this:

“We remain fully committed to delivering the exciting plans for Haigh Hall that will transform the entire hall and wider grounds into an arts and culture destination of national significance. It is not unusual to make contractual decisions throughout the duration of a project of this scale and we are unable to comment on the specifics of each contract. In the case of the creative directors’ contract, however, we can confirm that the contract was issued for a period of 12 months and came to a natural end in September.”

The Als in Haigh Hall. Photo: Al Holmes and Al Taylor.

Confused at the glaring discrepancy in the accounts of the two parties, we reached out to Al and Al for their version of events. As luck would have it, they said, they recorded the meeting.