THE city council remains divided over pushing ahead with building a new arts venue.

Worcester councillors have vowed to continue with plans to revitalise the Scala Theatre in Worcester after scrapping a move to build a 500-seat venue in favour of a new multi-use arts centre.

The modified work would create a more flexible space at the grade II listed former theatre in Angel Place to host music, drama, film screenings and comedy.

But the political dividing lines have been drawn over the plan with Labour accusing the Conservatives of allowing the project’s budget to “spiral out of control.”

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Tory councillor Stephen Hodgson said the new arts venue would “not put the city on the map” and the gap in funding, which totalled more than one million pounds, should have been found elsewhere.

“It could have been so much more,” he said at the policy and resources committee meeting in the Guildhall on Monday (October 16). “It’s sad that we are going to end up with this.”

“It’s better than what is already there but it doesn’t really put us on the map.

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“If we had the political leadership in this council, we would have taken a bold step. We would have found the extra funding.

“Good luck with the project but it’s not what was envisaged when my party was running this council.”

Cllr Jabba Riaz, deputy leader of the Labour group, said the council had now taken a grip of a project that had been “spiralling out of control” under the last Conservative leadership and the proposal was now “what the people wanted.”

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The council was forced to scrap plans for a 500-seat venue at the Scala Theatre earlier this year citing rising costs for the budget woes.

Green councillor Marjory Bisset, joint leader of the city council, said the current plan to build an “art centre for everyone” would be better for the city than a 500-seat theatre.

“I think that’s really valuable,” she said. “I don’t know where we would ever have found the funding.”

Worcester City Council was forced to redesign its landmark plans for the Scala Theatre after seeing its budget balloon in the last year.

In the summer, the city council revealed it was scrapping plans to build a new landmark 500-seat Scala Theatre in favour of a much smaller venue after seeing the gap in its budget rocket to £3.5 million in less than six months.

The redesign is expected to cost at least £250,000.

An independent survey carried out on behalf of the council spoke with 100 organisations with 86 per cent saying they would like to see the Scala turned into an arts centre.

The project, which was being funded by nearly £18 million in government Future High Street Fund money, has been drastically reduced ever since it was awarded in 2020 which left the city council battling to even carry out the cornerstone Scala work.

The council blamed inflation and rising construction costs for the spiralling budget.

Plans for a flexible stage which could be reconfigured for every performance, taller rooms, and balconies were all ditched in a bid to cut down costs.