The Stage

Guggenheim-style rescue plan for Bournemouth Winter Gardens

Published Tuesday 1 March 2005 at 13:45

Campaigners fighting to save Bournemouth Winter Gardens have unveiled multi-million proposals to convert the disused concert hall into an international arts venue.

Ambitiously billed as ‘Bournemouth’s Guggenheim’ after the famous art gallery with sites in New York and Bilbao, the centre will provide a home for Dance South West, the Big Little Theatre Company, the education and contemporary music arms of Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and the town’s music competitions festival among other creative activities.

Winter Gardens Trust members have presented the local authority with their plan for the site. Entitled Project WG 2005, it will be considered by councillors whose preferred option is demolition and replacement with a new, smaller venue. However, they gave campaigners three months from last December to come up with a plan that showed the venue would cost the council no more than £300,000 in annual subsidy. Campaigners were also told they must raise £6 million for the project.

With the plan now presented to the authority, Rod Kennedy, chairman of the trust, said the he believed it was “credible, operationally fit and financially viable”. He said the revamped venue would help transform the town centre, counter-balancing the preponderance of pubs and nightclubs.

“Bournemouth town centre has been considered a ‘no go’ area. We want all ages to feel safe in our town, and come back and enjoy our town centre. The new Winter Gardens will stimulate that change,” he said.

The Winter Gardens was due to be demolished under the borough council’s Tory administration, but a local election that put the Liberal Democrats in charge reversed its fortunes. As part of the party’s election pledge, a new plan was drawn up in which the venue was to be reopened by Christmas 2006 with a 1,500 capacity and professionally run by a charitable trust. Work was estimated to cost £6 million and the trust’s new submission builds on this.