Blow to hopes of reincarnating old Hippodrome theatre
HOPES of a Hippodrome crushed.
A scheme to reopen the Hippodrome as a theatre and arts centre have been rejected by council officers in favour of turning the site into a control centre for driverless vehicles.
It is a huge blow to the hopes of the Dudley Hippodrome Community Group which campaigned to save the jazz era venue and it could be the final nail in the coffin of the building that first opened in 1938.
A report to Dudley Council’s cabinet is recommending a proposal by the Dudley Driverless Vehicles Consortium to use the land as a control centre for a hitech autonomous vehicle dem- return look for Dudley set to be onstration route. The project is estimated to cost £9 million and is backed by the West Midlands Combined Authority’s Transport for the West Midlands group.
Council officers say the consortium’s proposal could create an autonomous route providing a commercial transport link between the Dudley Zoo, Living Museum and Canal and Tunnels Trust as well as a link to Dudley College Town Centre Campus.
The report said: “The objective is for Dudley to become a key national centre for autonomous vehicles.”
In rejecting a £12 million proposal by Dudley Hippodrome Community Group to refurbish the existing building as a theatre and arts centre, officers dismissed the scheme.
They said: “There is no clear and cogent plan as to how funding is to be secured, no consideration as to how audience is to be captured and grown and no assessment of the potential for competition between other nearby venues. The group accept that they have no experience of developing and delivering a major capital project. In virtually all areas of the submission, the proposal is weak.”