Selsey Pavilion set to be restored to past glories thanks to lottery grant

SussexWorld

Selsey Pavilion is to be restored to former glories and refurbished as a multi-purpose arts and heritage centre – thanks to a major new grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Transcript

00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers, and always

00:06 lovely to speak to Christian Skouten, but particularly today because Christian, Chairman

00:10 of the Selsey Pavilion Trust, you have the most fabulous news, don't you, in terms of

00:16 grants. What's happened?

00:18 We do. So, yeah, we've literally just heard that in the same month that the Selsey Pavilion

00:25 is 110 years old, we've been awarded a major grant of nearly £250,000 by the National

00:34 Lottery Heritage Fund. So that kind of closes out all of the fundraising that we've been

00:40 doing over the last year.

00:41 And that's towards the acquisition, so the purchase of the building.

00:45 It's for the purchase of the building and some very, very early sort of essential repairs

00:51 for fixing the roof and that sort of thing.

00:53 And that's incredibly exciting, isn't it? Because it's worth stressing that this has

00:57 been an incredibly long journey, hasn't it? Sort of six years in the planning, you've

01:01 been chairman for three of them.

01:04 Yeah.

01:05 And it's clearly now definitely, without a doubt, going to happen, isn't it?

01:09 Yeah, exactly. It's been a long road. And I think I should say before the charity was

01:14 set up, I mean, there's been an awful lot of people in the community that have been

01:17 trying to get this project going for decades. I mean, really going back to the 80s, there

01:25 were people talking about it. So I think it's fantastic. And I think even looking back three

01:32 years ago, to sort of where we were then to now, it's unbelievable really.

01:37 And the point is what it's going to be, which will be a community arts and heritage centre,

01:43 which will really do great things for the town of Tillsey, won't it?

01:47 It is. Over the period of the last few years, we've been sort of really refining what the

01:53 project will be. And I think it's definitely going to be a multi-purpose space. It's going

01:58 to be this community arts and heritage centre, it'll be a theatre, cinema. We also said we've

02:05 been funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and heritage is going to be a big part

02:10 of it. So we really want to try and be able to dedicate space to local heritage, to tell

02:15 the story of Selsey and the wider peninsula.

02:18 And that heritage aspect has become more important as the project has gone on then.

02:22 Yeah, definitely. I think it's always been something we've wanted to do. But I think

02:29 we're starting to look down the line at sort of phase two and the grand restoration that

02:34 will be three, four years in the future, obviously funding dependent. But looking at that, we've

02:41 started realising that hopefully there's spaces that we can dedicate to heritage.

02:44 Yeah, and it's tempting to think of this project as giving Selsey this fantastic new multi-purpose

02:50 centre. But in a way, it's simply giving Selsey back what it once had, isn't it?

02:55 Exactly. As I said, it opened 110 years ago. And it ran from the very early days, it was

03:03 a multi-purpose space. There was everything from boxing to sort of fundraising events

03:09 for the RNLI. It really had everything. And it was showing silent film from the very early

03:17 days. And it really went through in different guises till the 1970s.

03:26 It shut to the public and it became a packing facility for a company called WK Thomas. But

03:32 even that, it was an employer until 2008 when they left the building. So it's kind of always

03:38 had this, it's been in the centre of the high street in Selsey. And it's always played a

03:44 really important role. But it's very underutilised. And it's kind of always often talked about

03:51 as the long forgotten theatre in Selsey.

03:54 But in its heyday, it had some pretty significant people though, didn't it?

03:59 Exactly. We've literally, there was always a rumour about the Russian ballet appearing

04:03 there. And in the last three months, my colleague Keith Batchelor has finally uncovered proof

04:11 that Nijinsky, well Nijinska was there, the sister of Nijinsky, with a very small sort

04:20 of taste or flavour of the Russian ballet. But we've got concrete evidence. And also

04:27 all sorts of other people in the 20s and 30s. And even, you know, Second World War, Hollywood,

04:35 there was a Hollywood actress, can't remember the name now, but we'll do a newsletter about

04:40 her soon, who turned up to highlight the plight of the prisoners of war. And there's all sorts

04:45 of little bits and pieces we're uncovering all the time.

04:48 Which is why, as we're saying, that heritage aspect is going to be very important.

04:52 Yeah, I think it's lovely that we're finally being able to sort of put together the whole

04:57 story.

04:58 So purchase by latest March, ideally by the end of this year, and potentially then cinema,

05:05 some acts in the next summer, 2024.

05:07 Yeah, that'd be amazing. I mean, that's the dream. That's what we want to do.

05:13 We've grimped all the way and it's come true.

05:17 We've appointed solicitors now. So, you know, it really just depends how long this purchase

05:23 process takes. But if we can, you know, I'm really, really hopeful we can get there by

05:27 the end of the year. And then that will put us in good stead to sort of carry out some

05:32 of the urgent repairs early next year and be able to open sometime in the summer.

05:36 You know, stage one is going to be, it's going to remain unheated and it is going to be something

05:41 we can only use the main hall really in the summer and sort of late spring seasons. But

05:46 it will give us, you know, the ability to get the public in the community and showcase

05:51 what we're planning to do down the road.

05:52 Fantastic. Well, keep me posted at every stage. Let's keep chatting. But in the meantime,

05:57 huge congratulations. It's a massive achievement to have had this vision and to have brought

06:02 it to this point. So well done. And thank you.

06:05 Thanks. Cheers.

06:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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