Upgrade planned for Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall

THE Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society is planning a major refurbishment of the city’s Philharmonic Hall building.

The Society (RLPS) has issued a tender for a new design team to oversee the project, including a design team leader, a construction project manager and a quantity surveyor. The tender for the design team is worth up to £1.1m and the project has a completion date of 2014.

Meanwhile, the RLPS has also emerged victorious from an ongoing spat with Manchester’s Halle Orchestra about which was established first.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled this week that an RLPS claim to be “the UK’s oldest surviving professional symphony orchestra” was not misleading. It agreed with the society’s argument that it was founded in 1940 as an orchestra, rather than a concert promoter using Halle’s players, as the latter had argued.

The dispute follows an earlier complaint by RLPS about a Halle advertisement, which was upheld by the ASA last November.