Hopes that Burnham-On-Sea’s Princess Theatre can be saved from potential closure were given a major boost on Monday night (February 7th) when town councillors gave it £70,000 of funding.
The council – which has held months of confidential talks with cash-strapped Sedgemoor District Council about taking over the building – voted unanimously in favour of earmarking the cash to run it in the future.
Cllr John Morgan, who oversees the town council’s Policy and Finance Committee, said: “We’ve been offered it and now want to set aside the money to run it. If it can be shown that the Princess is financially viable, there will be money set aside for our successors to run it.”
He added: “If we don’t pay for services like The Princess, we won’t have them and they may close.”
With the money now in place, it now looks very likely that a deal to save The Princess from closure will be struck over the coming weeks.
It will end a long-running saga over the future of the building. Burnham-On-Sea.com reported on the district council’s surprise decision to pull the plug on its procurement process in September here.
Among the bidders for the building were S&D Cinemas, which runs Burnham’s Ritz Cinema, and The Friends of The Princess, which operates the hall in conjunction with Sedgemoor District Council.
Sedgemoor District Council has been responsible for the loss-making Princess Theatre in Princess Street since a local Government re-organisation in 1974, but its current financial position means it can no longer afford to run it.
