Head of Place, Property and Regeneration to report.

The Committee received an update on the Landmark Theatres.

The Head of Place, Property and Regeneration introduced Paul Jepson, CEO and Creative Director, Victoria Yates, Head of Finance and Ben Lyons-Ross, Head of Talent and Participation from the Landmark Theatre who were going to give an update to the Committee. 

The Council entered into a contract with the Landmark theatres to operate the Landmark in Ilfracombe and the Queens theatre in Barnstaple in 2019.  North Devon Council Officers met monthly with the theatre company and received quarterly monitoring reports as well as an annual report.  It continued to be a challenging time for the sector but they continued to do well.  Works had recently been completed to the Queens Theatre roof and Landmark Theatre fire alarm system and funding bids had recently been submitted for upgrades to the heating system at the Landmark. 

Mr Jepson began the presentation by explaining that the Arts Council part funded the organisation.  The Landmark was a new addition to the Arts Council portfolio and that the Landmark were situated across two sites, one in Ilfracombe and the other in Peterborough. 

The purpose of the organisation was to provide the highest quality theatre to the widest possible demographic in the least culturally engaged places in England.

·         Outside of London, this sector had the lowest access to jobs and training.

·         Access to the Arts was place based and this organisation looked to address that.

·         Provision of effective training.  The aspiration was to create jobs and training.

·         The organisation were aware of the loneliness epidemic.  They were working on the provision of theatre as a means to address this problem. 

·         There were two types of programme the Commercial and the Curated.

·         There had been some success in attracting weeklong commercial productions.  The biggest difficulty attracting companies to visit the area was the lack of sale of tickets.

·         They had been fortunate to partner with the National Theatre,

·         A pantomime business had grown, which offered bespoke stage sets and this would be moving to the Queens theatre next year.

Victoria Yates the Head of Finance at Landmark theatres then updated the Committee as follows:

·         She joined the company at the end of January 2024 and it became clear to her quickly that the business had many operational weaknesses. 

·         Working with HR finance processes had been put in place to create a more robust monitoring system.

·         The business was in a deficit with a negative balance sheet of around £1.4million.

·         A system called Lean in had been developed which looked at creating cost savings and efficiencies across the organisation.

·         A Zero-based budgeting system had been introduced, with the aim to save £300 to £400,000 per annum on costs such as procurement.

·         Other savings had been made by reducing the number of hours the box office was manned, automating processes where possible and by centralising marketing operations in Peterborough.

·         Another improvement to the finances was parting ways with Selladoor who would be writing off a debt of £600,000.

·         Aiming to be breaking even by the end of March 2025.

·         Working hard to bring new audiences to the theatre, looking at ways to diversify their income by growing pantomime business. The venues would be available to hire commercially for other activities.

·         It was hoped that by 31 March 2028 the balance sheet would be in a positive situation and in a position to invest in the infrastructure of the buildings.

·         Now applying for charity status, which would open up the organisation to be eligible to apply for funding streams otherwise unavailable.

Ben Lyons-Ross then presented his segment as follows:

·         His main area of work was involved in training and skills and the development of participation.

·         As part of the Participation Strategy a schools partnership programme was in place, five secondary schools and four primary schools from North Devon had been involved. 

·         Around 400 workshops were delivered to the schools and enabled close to 1,200 young people to perform on the stage.

·         A community Decision Makers panel had been set up and the purpose of the group was to scrutinise the programme and decide on whether it was relevant to and of interest to the local community.

·         To address the difficulty of engaging with the 16-25 year old age group the organisation had broadened the skills training available. 

·         Successful British Film Institute (BFI) funding had allowed the introduction of an Academy short course programme providing hands on training and experience in filmmaking.

·         There was a large number of applicants to take part in this course and the number who were successful covered a number of protected characteristics such as having a disability, being female and coming from a working class background.

·         A flagship event the ‘Welcome Weekender’ held in September was a festival to welcome new artists and performers into the building on their own terms.

·         The event generated around £140,000 income to the area and created paid work opportunities and work experience shadowing opportunities for a number of young people and adults over the weekend.

·         The event had a beneficial impact on the area.

·         Arty Bank was a new initiative being created which took its premise from Multibank, a social initiative providing poverty relief by way of connecting companies with surplus goods to local charities and care professionals who then distribute those goods.

·         The Arty bank would offer similar provision but alongside this would be a ‘free at the point of access’ offer tied into the service. 

·         Collaborations with local community groups such as Action for Children, North Devon Homes, Sunrise Diversity, Encompass Southwest and Age Concern were underway to help tackle issues such as social isolation.

·         The ambition was to make the theatre a hub for community inclusion.

The Committee then asked questions and received the following replies:

·         A lot of work was carried out in schools and issues young children were struggling with were creatively dealt with through the participation programme.

·         The organisation was not aware of any programming duplications in the area.

·         The charitable status would help significantly with funding opportunities.

·         Any opportunities to advertise in public spaces was welcomed.  The Head of Place, Property and Regeneration added that the team were working with the Landmark on a marketing strategy.

·         Selladoor were now a relatively small organisation and splitting from them would strengthen the Landmark’s financial position.

·         In relation to lack of skills in the technical theatre production, this would be addressed by the introduction of a technical theatre qualification.

·         In terms of reconnecting the two theatres in North Devon with the local community, the new Arty Bank project was an attempt to place the theatre and arts in the centre of the community.