Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge town councillors have this week voted in favour of delaying a final decision on the future of the town’s Princess Theatre for a year while they implement a number of improvements and also investigate how other theatres in the region are run.
The decision came during a Town Council meeting on Tuesday (June 27th) when they debated whether to proceed with an expression of interest from the owners of Burnham’s Ritz Cinema to take over the council-run theatre, as first reported here.
This week’s debate also came just days after the Town Council’s Princess Management Committee considered the outcome of an independent review of the theatre. It proposed a number of improvements to boost the theatre’s viability which are set to be taken forward.
After a 50-minute debate at this week’s meeting when councillors aired a wide range of opinions, they voted in favour of adopting a proposal from Cllr Barbara Vickers, seconded by Cllr Peter Clayton.
Cllr Vickers said: “My proposal is that we form a working party of councillors from the HR, Princess Management, and Finance Committees to look at other theatres, and other ways they are owned, managed and funded, and visit these – bringing information, and data back to analyse and compare with our area and our theatre.”
“It would be our task as a working group to put together the wide range of options that actually exist; while the HR and Princess Management Committes make sure the structure is in place to implement as many of the consultant’s recommendations for the Princess Theatre as possible in this coming year, to improve financial viability.”
“We should give ourselves one year to both gather and prepare an informed way forward, reviewing findings quarterly, so that it will not be left to the last minute. We will then bring this back to the full Town Council this time next year with definite recommendations that have been researched and supported by data, and then consider the way forward and which of any of these options is right for us.”
Ten councillors voted in favour of her proposal with one against and four abstaining.
Earlier in Tuesday’s meeting, a separate proposal from Cllr Ganesh Gudka was also considered and not supported during a vote by councillors. Cllr Gudka said: “This proposal is that the Council, subject to due consultation with staff and the public, develops a process to invite tenders to take over the operation of the Princess Theatre. This would be on the basis of the Council retaining ownership of the building and leasing it to a potential Operator.”
“We would respond to the owners of The Ritz Cinema to say that we will review their Expression of Interest (EOl) by inviting them to submit a response to an invitation that will be drafted having assessed that consultation. We must be clear that their proposals will be reviewed alongside any other EOl’s and; it is possible that all tenders could fail to meet our criteria; and that there will inevitably be costs involved in advertising, consultation, legal advice and contracts. Accordingly, it is proposed to allocate up to £20,000 from the general reserve to cover these costs.” That proposal did not attract enough votes to proceed.
Mayor Cllr Lesley Millard said the council had talked to the Somerset Association of Local Councils (SALC) to clarify the best process to consider the options for the theatre.
Cllr Sharon Perry, who chairs The Princess Management Committee, said she had “grappled with the issue” of the theatre’s future and had “kept an open mind” on the options, adding that she feels the cost to the taxpayer in running the theatre may not be significantly reduced with a new operator.
Cllr Mike Murphy added that he feels the theatre is a “cultural asset” and that “it is not for the council to run it, it is for us to guide it.”
Cllr Peter Clayton said he believes “the £90k annual running cost for the theatre is based on 40-50% audience rates, so when that recovers after Covid the costs should come down and that should be factored in. Regarding the expression of interest, I seriously doubt with financial regulations that we could give someone a public building at a peppercorn rent with no running costs. I don’t think it would be in the best interests of the town or legal. I think we have got to give the findings of the consultant’s report a chance – they have given us options to increase revenue and I think that’s the way forward. I’m not saying we shouldn’t look at other interests, but I think you will be hard pushed to find one that is best value for the town.”
Cllr Catherine Searing said: “We should use the information in the consultant’s report. I’m also mindful that we need to reduce the cost for residents but we need to give the report a chance. Recruiting the right manager must be the way forward but we need to review the progress on a regular basis. Persuing grants and doing what other successful theatres have done can only help us and I think we should give that a chance before we start with the tenders.”
Cllr Julie Flurry added: “I think we need to give ourselves an opportunity to get it right. We were elected by the public to try and get this right.”
Cllr Ben Metcalfe added: “I’m leaning to keeping it under council hands if at all possible. I think we would be seriously remiss not to look at serious tenders and to understand the tender process better.”
Cllr Alan Matthews added: “I feel this is a similiar situation to the running of the council offices or the library. There was no feasability study done – it was all in the mind. What we now have is a report from a professional consultant to say employ an adequate manager. We had one. Why didn’t we make more efforts to keep her in place. She had extremely good ideas on how to take the theatre forward. We cannot under-estimate the local group subsidies that we are giving out – we as a council have to decide if we want to continue doing that. I think we should and we need to more transparent about that. Secondly I don’t think having it under the control of someone else we could adequately put a figure on our maximum subsidy – we would have the deafult position that the third party could walk and we could end up with substantial libabilities.”
Cllr Alasdair Elrick added that he feels greater clarity is needed on the main uses of the theatre to agree the overall vision. The Mayor noted that a set of statements on the theatre had previously been agreed by councillors in setting its strategic plan.
Cllr Roger Keen also said during Tuesday’s debate: “This parish is now much larger than when the Princess first came into the ownership of the Town Council. A flexible theatre such as The Princess is therefore a necessary cultural asset to our and a wider community. Town Councillors and their staff do not have the professional expertise to run and manage a theatre. In order to run a commercially successful theatre a professional ‘promoter’ needs to be engaged, who understands the costs and conditions of professional performers and who would seek to form relationships with the hospitality providers and other businesses in the Town as an adjunct to attracting professionals.”
Cllr Keen also said that short term measures need to be introduced to improve seating and added “there is an urgent need to start the process of putting together a tender document. This will take some time and will need professional advice. A failure to arrive at a decision quickly, or a refusal to contribute constructively to the analysis of the whole situation could be interpreted as a wilful sabotage by other interests not connected to the benefit of the town or the Princess.”
