West Norfolk Council accused of 'gambling money' over plans for St George’s Guildhall
Shakespeare is thought to have performed in the building in 1593
A bid to transform a 600-year-old theatre into a global tourist destination for Shakespeare fans has attracted fears over whether too much money is being poured into the flagship project.
King’s Lynn council is facing criticism over its plan to refurbish the town’s St George’s Guildhall, with one critic accusing the authority of “gambling” money on the scheme.
The revamp of the 600-year-old National Trust property is just one of several projects set to receive funding through Lynn’s ‘Town Deal’ – itself one of 101 pots of government money intended to boost regeneration in specific towns across England.
Shakespeare is thought to have performed in the building in 1593, when London theatres were closed by plague – and the council hopes to emphasise this link to increase tourism to the town.
In addition to the Guildhall’s refurbishment, Lynn’s £25m Town Deal pot is being used to help train young people with new skills, to create a “multi-user community hub” in the town centre, to encourage clean and active travel, to regenerate Lynn’s riverfront, and to increase footfall to businesses by improving the town’s accessibility.
But several changes have now been made to how much money each of those schemes will receive.
The money put into refurbishing the Guildhall has almost doubled, from £4,765,000 to £8,097,181.
According to council documents, the increase will pay for “a redesign of the theatre space to capitalise on the connection to Shakespeare, resulting in an Elizabethan style theatre which will enhance the site as a major visitor attraction but also enable and support the proposed educational programme”.
The community hub’s cost has similarly grown, from £4,291,000 to £7,400,000.
Cuts have been made to the riverfront regeneration programme, and to the active travel plans, to pay for those increases.
One further proposal, to repurpose empty town centre units into business, leisure and living spaces, has been dropped – although the council has committed to “seek alternative funding” for it.
At a Monday meeting of the council’s regeneration and development panel, independent councillor Alun ‘Tom’ Ryves expressed concern over the Guildhall’s increased cost.
He pointed out that the project will require some £3.2m in additional funds from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which was not guaranteed, but is a cost the council has already underwritten.
Mr Ryves said: “I do feel almost as if we’re in the position of a gambler who’s throwing everything, the odds going against him, and he’s just increasing his stake to get his money back.”
While he said he wants the Guildhall to succeed, he questioned the project’s expense, and how much it accorded with the government’s objectives for the Towns Fund.
The panel’s Conservative chair, Judith Collingham, said the panel could not consider new projects – because the government’s deadline for business cases for the projects is approaching.
Mr Ryves responded: “If you’re going in the wrong direction, it’s never too late to stop.
“Sometimes you have to say things have changed, and then you have to consider, you can’t just blindly follow your plan because it’s your plan. As Mike Tyson said, ‘no plan survives a punch in the face’.”
Mrs Collingham later said her view was that the council had to “speculate to accumulate” to secure the funding for the Guildhall.
Graham Perkins, who chairs Lynn’s Town Deal Board, said: “It doesn’t seem an unnatural fit with the objectives of the Towns Fund.
“It’s one of our strongest and most unique cultural assets… and there’s a great opportunity for the economic prosperity that the Towns Fund is targeting as well.
“So for me, it’s not a surprise that it’s a high priority, and the increase in budget comes from a broadening in scope, a refinement of the cost that it takes to refurbish the building and a further, detailed knowledge of what the project can involve.”
The changes to the projects’ spending were recommended for approval by the panel, and voted through by the council’s cabinet on Wednesday.
‘Town’s next white elephant’
Independent councillor Alexandra Kemp told Monday’s panel meeting she was “very concerned” about the community hub’s “spiralling cost” and what it could mean for Lynn’s existing library on London Road.
The hub will be located in the town’s former Argos building, and will serve as a “one-stop shop for library, learning and advice”.
The increased cost will cover the project’s “enhanced scope and activity proposed around the skills offer, multi-purpose spaces, commercial opportunities and offers for businesses”.
But Ms Kemp said older people had not been adequately consulted on the scheme and that it “has the potential to be the next white elephant of this town”.
An officer said there was a very high level of participation in the consultation and the overwhelming feedback was for a town centre facility like the hub.
Ms Kemp then asked whether Lynn’s existing Carnegie library, which is run by the county council, would be “sold off to the highest bidder, as we’ve seen with Holt Hall”.
The council’s Conservative deputy leader Graham Middleton, who also sits on the county council, said the latter authority “has absolutely no ambition to flog off the Carnegie building”.
“It will not be a lost heritage asset… It is going to be protected,” he said.
“Is there going to be another use? Yes. We’ve been aware of that throughout the entirety of this process and the county council have made it absolutely clear that it will continue to be a community asset.”