The community group who are campaigning to save the Brighton Hippodrome as a venue for live theatre have added a new page to their website.
THE PAGE details what campaigners consider to be shortcomings in the way Brighton and Hove City Council has handled the prospects for the Hippodrome’s future.
Campaigners allege among other things that information they provided to council officers was withheld from city councillors.
The District Valuer produced a report for Brighton and Hove City Council claiming a theatre at the Hippodrome would lose £249,890 a year.
This assertion was based on figures supplied by the developer showing that only a cinema would be viable.
Our Brighton Hippodrome campaigners submitted a detailed analysis of the developer’s report but this was withheld from the District Valuer and from elected members explicitly because Our Brighton Hippodrome is a community group.
A Brighton and Hove Council spokeswoman quoted the District Valuer’s report in a recent press statement as confirmation that a theatre “was unlikely to be viable”.
Campaigners say this is “complete nonsense”, claiming the calculations were based on a much smaller theatre than envisaged, on seat occupancy less than half the national average for regional touring theatres and an average ticket price well below a realistic average.
Substituting more reasonable and reliable figures in their financial model produces a profit of £2.5m.
The detailed business plan produced by Our Hiuppodrome Brighton shows that the likely annual net balance would be in the region of £1.7m more than enough to show that theatre would flourish at the Hippodrome.
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