New theatre could be built on bus station site in Swindon

Swindon's bus centre could become a new theatre as the council plans to give the town centre a facelift.

Leader Jim Robbins (Lab) says they're looking at building a new performance space where the bus station is on Manchester Road.

He said: “It’s early stages but we think we have a way to getting a new theatre built there.

“When the buses all move to the Bus Boulevard, then we’ll knock down the bus station and that’s where we’d like to put a new theatre. It will help unlock the Kimmerfields area and regenerate that part of the town centre.”

He added that the new theatre should be a flexible space for different events: “If you get a comedian in, say, and they’ll sell only so many tickets, you can have that number of seats. But if there’s a big show that needs 2,000 seats you can have that as well.”

The previous Conservative administration had started working on plans for a theatre in the same general area of the town centre as part of its Cultural Quarter plans.

A brochure issued in 2021 shows a 1,200-seat theatre and a new art gallery and museum as the anchors for a central plaza.

But Cllr Robbins said: “When we took over there weren’t really any developed plans, so we’re starting again. We’ve had a really positive conversation with the Arts Council on what we’d need to do to get the venue."

What both the previous and current administrations agree on is that the Wyvern Theatre at the top of Regent Street is no longer fit for purpose.

The cabinet member for arts culture and heritage Marina Strinkovsky told the audience: “The Wyvern is coming to the end of its life, in two ways.

"It’s a concrete building, it wasn’t built as a Regency building intended to last for 300 years and it’s too small. The podium is becoming structurally unstable.”

Cllr Robbins added, when questioned about whether the Wyvern would be demolished: “No, we’ll keep it, and it will be as a performing space and we’d hope it is well-used by community arts groups, but the main professional theatre will be where the bus station is now.”

Credit: Aled Thomas, Local Democracy Reporting Service.