Council Exec agrees plans to remove RAAC in Redhill’s Harlequin Theatre

The Harlequin Theatre building

After significant discussions, key decisions agreed include:

• Removing the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in the theatre and undertaking other essential works at the same time to allow the theatre to reopen at previous capacity.
• Ask Full Council to allocate £4.5million from Council reserves to fund this work (at its July meeting)
• Appointing a specialist company to market and seek expressions of interest for a third-party to run The Harlequin.

Creation of an additional arts and culture venue in Unit 5 of The Rise, central Redhill

In the same meeting, the Executive also agreed to:

• Appointing a specialist company to market and seek expressions of interest for a third-party to run Unit 5.

Full details of the recommendations agreed can be viewed online as well as a recording of the webcast (items 4 and 5).

Cllr Richard Biggs, Council Leader, said: “I am absolutely delighted we’ve agreed a way forward for The Harlequin. Deciding how best to deal with the RAAC in the theatre has been very complex but now we can really push forward with getting the theatre back open as quickly as possible. I, like many of our local arts groups, cannot wait to see live performances back in our much-loved theatre”.

“I’m also really pleased we can progress with opening a second arts and cultural venue in Redhill. We’ve already had interest expressed from more than one local organisation to run this as a separate venue and whilst we need to run a full procurement exercise, the initial interest is really positive.”

In addition to two detailed reports, the Executive considered comments and observations made by the Overview & Scrutiny (O&S) Committee last week.