Richard Bigg
speaker
138 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2024
last heard Feb 2025
Richard Bigg’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Item 5, the Harlequin Theatre.
It can't be put in the capital programme. until the actual amount is known and a lot more work's got to go on before that, which is why it's an allocation rather than that.
Some may have seen a sketch in there of a potential layout to Unit 5, which is literally an artist's impression. I've been asked by Surrey County Council to highlight the fact that although the picture showed the word library on it, there is no intention of the library moving from where they're rebuilding it to this unit. So it was a little bit of artist's...
interpretation and a bit of license from the artist. So I just wanted to put that on record. The work continues from the conversation I had with the portfolio holder today. The work continues on the library site. So I just wanted to clarify that.
I'll go to Councillor Moses to answer that first.
The level of interest we've had for the smaller space and the potential of it wiping its face as a facility means that there's every chance that we can continue it long after the Harlequin is reopened and we then end up with the potential of two performance spaces. which will cater for even more opportunities. So whether that's comedy or music or performance arts in one way, shape or form.
So I think it's really promising and I hope that we can do it. It's certainly, I think, the ambition of this council to do that.
We have got a limited team as well, and so I really want them concentrating on getting the 200, which is already built, the 200 potential CETA there, and getting the Harlequin back on its feet as quickly as possible. And there's every chance that if we're focused, that five years, which I always said was worst case scenario, could be four years or three years.
But let's concentrate on the things that we can do quickly and efficiently and not be distracted by something else that, as we've already said, the actual site that was looked at and potential actually doesn't work for a number of reasons.
I would think as it's financed, that would be Councillor Lewinsky that would answer that one.
We've just started on local government reform, and we don't know in three years' time what the priorities will be of a potential unitary authority. So our job as a council at the moment is to try and secure as much of the non-statutory services that we provide, as Rygate and Vance did, for long into the future.
Absolutely, as a council we would support, but long term we must make sure that it's there as long as it can be, and that means making it as self-sufficient as possible, which then takes away any potential risk. So that's where my ambition is, it certainly won't be guaranteed, three, four, five years time, we need to make sure that it's not coming up on the radar of any future unitary authority.
It's a rebuilding process that we've got to go through. My personal view is, yeah, if we can make it bigger, better, stronger and still keep the timelines that we're aiming for and costs that we're aiming for, then obviously that probably adds some advantage to the flexibility of the space and therefore the potential of income generation as well.
But I think it would probably be better if I asked Dan Jones to give a more detailed answer to that.
I would ask all visiting members just to be conscious that some questions could be regarded as part two exempt. So I would ask you very carefully to consider your question before you ask it.
I think it depends on the layout that is approved, which we can't do until this meeting has agreed whether that's the right way forward. Is that correct?
I know some of the equipment has already gone out and is being used in different areas across the borough, and I would hope that we would be very wise and very prudent in using that equipment in any temporary space that we did, providing it's safe to remove it from the building.
We don't want to buy new if we're going to throw away perfectly good stuff that's already sitting either in the weller or in the main theatre, for example, or the foyer or anything else.
I think we've addressed an awful lot of what you've brought up already this evening. We've also addressed the fact of the temporary theatre and let's be honest, we've mentioned two or three times in the past about the cost of the temporary theatre and the plans that I've seen had about £2.8 million to put it up, £400,000 to run it each year and no guarantee of...
input on that and no cost for taking it down and restoring wherever it was put afterwards. So there was a lot of elements within that that I think would have taken our eye off the ball and I'm not sure how many times we have to say we are going to rebuild the Harlequin before someone says, oh, you actually said you're going to rebuild the Harlequin.
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