Members of Swindon Borough Council’s ruling labour cabinet will be asked to approve a plan to talk to constructors to build a new theatre and concert venue in the town centre.
The authority’s Corporate Overview and Scrutiny committee quizzed council leader Councillor Jim Robbins and the cabinet member for finance Councillor Kevin Small about what the administration is planning.
Councillor Robbins said: "The time left for the Wyvern is limited and I wouldn’t want Swindon to lose something of the scale of the Wyvern. And we’ve seen from when the Oasis closed and when the Museum and Art Gallery how long it takes to get them up and running again.
"So it’s something we want to get on with."
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Cabinet will be asked to agree on the site for the new venue as being on the bus station when it is cleared.
Cllr Robbins said then discussions would go on about what sort of venue it would be, but he said the advice from the industry is that one which can seat 1,200 people, and hold 2,000 when standing for concerts would be able to attract large-scale popular touring shows.
He cited the current tour of the musical Hamilton as a possible example.
Currently, the Wyvern Theatre holds 600 people.
Although the type of venue is yet to be decided, Cllr Small said of the Abba Voyage Arena in East London, which was in the report to the committee as one possible option: “It’s built offsite and it’s temporary if you want to call it that. But when you go inside it’s like any other modern theatre. The acoustics are fantastic, and the view and the seating are better than what we have in the Wyvern at present.
“Everything about it is like a contemporary theatre.”
A report to the committee by the designer and builder of the Abba Arena Stufish said a similar construction in Swindon might cost around £35m.
The chairman of the scrutiny committee Councillor Dale Heenan expressed concern about the lack of detail in the council’s proposals.
He said: “We haven’t seen an options appraisal, no outline business case or any costings. The verbal briefing we’ve received is gratefully received, but there’s very little information to see.”
Cllr Robbins said there were still options on what the venue would be, how it would be designed and how it might be paid for and said: “Until we have done that work, it’s difficult to be specific about the details.”
The committee resolved that it welcomes the reaffirmation of the long-term plan to site an entertainment venue to replace the current bus station, but added: “The outline business case was not provided to help members provide pre-scrutiny, and there are limited details available to support cabinet with feedback to move forward with the detailed business case.
It requested more information earlier, to allow all members to help with the proposals and to keep the public informed.
If the approach that built the Abba Voyage arena is taken, offices, dressing rooms, lavatories and the like would be individual buildings on site, with the auditorium and fly tower built around them later.
Then the outer layer of the building would be put up around that, with a decision yet to be made on how ‘permanent’ those areas are.
Cllr Small said the Abba theatre might be demounted and taken in its entirety to Australia and put back up there in a few years.
A paper will be presented to the cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday, November 13.
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