SSDC provide £6m for Octagon theatre upgrade

South Somerset District Council (SSDC) announced its intention in late-December 2020 to upgrade the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil, expanding and enhancing the venue to allow it to attract bigger shows and higher-profile acts.

The council voted in January 2021 to proceed in principle with the project (which was budgeted at £23.01M), with the government announcing in March that it would provide £10M of grant funding and allow the council to claim back all VAT associated with the project.

Members of the council’s district executive committee voted on Thursday morning (February 17) to provide £6M extra for the project to combat rising construction costs prompted by Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic.

Councillor Mike Best, portfolio holder for leisure and culture, told the committee that the rise in costs was “not unique to our project”, citing other construction programmes in Yeovil which had met with similar issues.

He said: “Yeovil Hospital, which is expanding its breast cancer unit, has the same issue, where they thought they had enough funding and now they have to open it [the fundraising] up again because of building costs.

“Our team has looked again at the project, maintaining its high-quality of build and keeping within the criteria of the central government funding.

“The Octagon upgrade is well overdue. If we don’t go forward, this doesn’t disappear – there will still be the need to carry out significant changes to the venue.

“The project will make the Octagon a significant venue in this part of the country, as well as offering more to groups based locally, bringing income to the local community, continuing the theme of the Yeovil Refresh, and ensuring the future of the Octagon for many years to come.”

In addition to the £6M of extra funding within its capital programme, the council will increase its revenue budget by £680,000 to fund the cost of the additional borrowing – the intention being to fund this through the ticket levy and operating income of the theatre.

Up to £1.2M of the revised capital budget will be spent on the final business case and the more detailed design work, without which the project cannot get under way.

Councillor John Clark, portfolio holder for economic development, said: “This is a spectacular, ambitious and very welcome development, and I believe we should be very proud of it.

“In future there’s going to be one new, very large council in Somerset, and it’s not clear to me how substantial projects like this will get developed.

“In the short-term, it’s crucially important that we get the projects that are ‘on the books’ decided in a robust fashion, which is what we’re doing, so the new council will inherit them and there will be an obligation to deliver.”

Councillor Peter Seib, portfolio holder for finance, legal and democratic services, said the scheme retained backing from both central government and local residents in spite of the increase in costs.

He said: “Long before this paper came before this council right now, the MP [Marcus Fysh] and [arts] minister agreed that they would substantially back what is a very important development for the town, for the district and for the region – it’s a very significant national improvement to do this project.

“While we have been driven by the increase in construction costs here, we haven’t seen anything like the worst of the increase in construction costs that other people have seen in their projects. I know [Mayor of London] Sadiq Khan back in January was talking about some of their projects hitting a 45 per cent increase in costs.

“As I go around on the doorstep, this is the one project that nobody has any doubt about. They totally understand why it will improve the prospects of their sub-region, but they also see how it’s going to improve their lives, very directly and very immediately.”

The Somerset Independents campaign group, which heavily criticised the initial investment in the project, has attacked the committee’s decision to push forward in light of rising costs.

Speaking after the meeting, group member Andrew Pope said: “This is no surprise to me, but Somerset Independents did question the council’s decision to put millions of pounds of public money at risk.

“They cannot say that we did not warn them – we did. But councillors went ahead anyway and have now risked even more millions of public money that could be spent on essential services instead.”

Following unanimous approval by the district executive committee, the Octagon Theatre funding proposals will come before the full council for final approval as part of its annual budget-setting meeting on February 28.