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Dateline: 2nd August, 2007
Assembly Revamp Costs Increase by £2m The cost of revamping Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms to make the building a year-round professional arts venue, due to start in September 2010, has increased by £2m since the proposals were first announced last December. (See our story of 12th December) It has also now been suggested that the venue will close for as long as 22 months, four months longer than originally planned. It was originally suggested by Edinburgh council's tourism and culture leader Donald Anderson that it would be possible for the venue to be open for the 2011 Fringe. "We are determined to do everything we can to ensure it doesn't have to close during the Fringe," he said then, but now Jim Inch, the council's director of corporate services, has said, "If a decision was to be taken to open the venue for the Fringe in 2011, there would be an impact on the costs and timing of the construction programme." When the revamp was announced, William Burdett-Coutts, who runs the venue during the Fringe, said that, if the venue had to close during the Fringe, "The whole guts of our operation would be ripped out," and now he has said he will fight the plans all the way. He will be joined in that fight by the King's, the Traverse, the Lyceum and the Festival theatres. A letter to the council leader Jenny Dawe, signed by Stephen Cotton, chairman of the Traverse, Chris Masters, chairman of the Festival City Theatres Trust, and Donald Emslie, chairman of the Royal Lyceum, says, "In an already crowded marketplace for the arts, the proposed professional programme of performing arts at the Assembly Rooms could have a profound and damaging effect upon our audiences and audiences generally." They complain that there had been no consultation with them by the new council administration over the plans and are said the be furious about it. Councillor Dawe responded, "My understanding had been that there had been a full consultation carried out over the Assembly Rooms proposals, but it appears now that this has not been the case, and we've agreed to have a further period of discussion." The council has agreed to hold talks with the theatres and to put off any decision for two months. The situation is complicated by the fact that it is widely recognised that the King's Theatre is in need of major work.
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