Campaigners join forces to explore community ownership of Melton Theatre

This emerged at a meeting on Monday night called to rally support to retain the theatre after Loughborough College Group announced recently it was seeking a new owner or investors for it.

Interested parties have only until Friday’s deadline to submit proposals to keep the theatre going and there is interest in running it under a community ownership model.

The aim is to set up a Community Interest Company (CIC) – a non-profit organisation – to explore, fund, and manage a long-term theatre presence in the area.

Interested parties are being asked to take a £1,000 share in the CIC with the target of raising £100k to get the project off the ground.

Suzanne Forrester, of Forrester Academies, who is one of the group leading the drive, told the Melton Times after the meeting: “We are looking for a board of nine or 10 directors all with specialist skills.

“We are really, really confident we can get enough support after Monday’s meeting.

“There was a really strong willingness to support it.

“We are asking for 100 people to come forward to put in £1k each to have a share.

“Or people can group to get together, as a couple or a family.”

Suzanne said that if was not possible to keep the theatre at its current location, the CIC would explore setting it up at another location.

Melton Borough Council leader, Pip Allnatt, indicated at the meeting that £2M in levelling up funding which was diverted from Melton Theatre to the redevelopment scheme at the town’s Stockyard could still be used for a theatre project, at its current location or in a new venue. It would have to be decided by councillors when a plan is in place.

The previous owner of the theatre – SMB College Group – was unable to accept £2M in government ‘levelling up’ funding due its own financial issues and the council repurposed the money to help fund the food and drink hub scheme at the Stockyard, on the livestock market site.

It was announced this week that construction and renovation work on this development, which was due to start this year, has now been delayed until July next year.

The £2M funding, which has to be spent by 2027, was due to be used to help renovate the existing trader hall into a multi-purpose event space, including work to make the roof and the fabric of the building more resilient.

Loughborough College Group CEO, Corrie Harris, told a public meeting earlier this month that it was not financially viable for the college group to continue operating the theatre and the adjacent college campus without further financial support.

She said that essential maintenance work totalling £3M had be carried out on the buildings and that interested parties needed to factor that in to any proposals to keep them going.

Suzanne said the drivers of the CIC would submit an outline of their plan before the deadline but they would also be asking the college group to extend the deadline date until March 31 to give them time to get everything in place.

Go to www.loucoll.ac.uk/melton-theatre-consultation to make proposals or state your views before 4pm on Friday October 31.