Ashford Odeon: £7.5m Theatre Plans on Show This Friday

The designs for turning the front of Ashford’s former Odeon into a theatre go on public show next week, and this is the last look before the planning application is submitted.

Ashford Borough Council is holding a consultation event on Friday 18 September, from 10am to 4pm, in the Main Square at County Square. The project team will be there with the drawings, and the council says visitors can “view the latest designs, meet members of the project team, ask questions and give feedback before the planning application is submitted” (Ashford Borough Council).

It is a working day, in a shopping centre, with no booking. That is the whole window.

The design has changed since March

Cabinet endorsed the concept on 12 March 2026. The council now says three things have moved since then, after feedback from residents and cultural groups:

• increased capacity for the studio theatre
• a more accessible High Street entrance and box office
• an improved backstage area

The capacity change is measurable. The March report to Cabinet described a “150-200 capacity flexible performance space”. The council’s project page now gives the performance space as 176 to 212 people, seated or standing (The Odeon project page).

Capacity was the sore point at the Cabinet meeting. The minutes record a member saying that “since this proposal had hit the press there had been several comments about capacity”, and answering them with “use it or lose it”: this is phase 1, and “if they sold out every seat at every event, then maybe phase 2 could bring more seats” (Cabinet minutes, 12 March 2026).

What is actually proposed

Only the front section of the building, the part facing the High Street, comes back into use in this phase. The rest is stabilised and left for later. The published scheme is:

• a flexible performance space for 176 to 212 people, for gigs, comedy, spoken word and small-scale theatre
• a foyer with a cafe and bar, and informal workspace
• a gallery and pop-up creative area
• the restored first-floor ballroom, for workshops, rehearsals, dance and classes such as yoga
• hire for meetings, conferences, weddings and celebrations
• step-free circulation, better facilities and modern building systems

The building was put up in 1936 to a design by the cinema architect Andrew Mather, and the council says it is committed to restoring the art deco High Street frontage, the foyer and the first-floor spaces. The architects are Haworth Tompkins. The site sits in Victoria ward.

Where the £7.5m goes

The March report put the capital cost of taking the scheme through to completion at up to £7.5m, excluding VAT: £4.9m of construction and fit out, £1.1m of asbestos removal and strip out, and £1.5m of other non-construction costs. More than £1.8m of that total is risk, inflation and contingency, because the design is still early.

Between £1.5m and £2m of the money is proposed to come from the Business Rates Pool for Economic Regeneration.

Cabinet endorsed the £1.1m of strip-out and asbestos work, already in the approved 2026/27 capital budget. It noted the requirement for a further £5.95m, which has to come back to Cabinet and full council once the final designs and costs are known. And it recommended that full council approve £450,000 to take the design to RIBA Stage 3, of which £250,000 was already in the capital budget. The council says the current phase follows both Cabinet and full council approval (Former Odeon Regeneration Project, Cabinet, 12 March 2026).

It will need a subsidy to run, and the report says so

This is the number that tends to get lost. The council’s early operating model forecasts that the venue will need about £111,000 of public money in its first year, falling to about £81,000 in a stable year from year three, from a mix of council funding, Arts Council, Lottery or other public bodies.

The report is candid that the modelling is “indicative and high-level”, depends heavily on which operator is appointed, and that any operator will bring its own assumptions.

It is also candid about why the building has sat empty. Previous redevelopment plans “became not viable due to their scale and cost”, which the report notes is a problem shared by former Odeon buildings across the country. The benchmark it cites is Bradford Live, which needed investment of more than £50m.

The operator search is still open

The council is looking for a long-term arts and cultural operator to run the venue, and is taking early expressions of interest through Julian Russell at Blue Horizon Ventures. We covered that search in our report on the operator hunt.

The council has also published support from two actors with Ashford connections. Alexander Arnold, who grew up in the town, said “the loss of Ashford Youth Theatre many years ago was deeply felt by many, so the prospect of creating a new cultural home on Ashford High Street is genuinely exciting”.

What it means for you

• Friday 18 September, 10am to 4pm, Main Square, County Square. No booking, no charge. It is the last advertised chance to comment before the application goes in.
• If you cannot get there, the council’s contact for the project is economicdevelopment@ashford.gov.uk.
• A planning application is the next formal stage, and it will have its own consultation period once it is validated. We will carry it on our Ashford planning news page.
• Nothing is funded beyond the design work yet. The £5.95m that builds the venue has not been approved, and the report says it will only come back once final costs are known.

More local information: things to do in Ashford, parking in Ashford and Ashford roadworks and travel.

Sources

• Ashford Borough Council, Ashford’s landmark Odeon revival reaches planning milestone, published 11 September 2026, for the consultation event date, time and venue, and for the three design changes since March.
• Ashford Borough Council, The Odeon project page, checked 12 September 2026, for the 176 to 212 capacity, the full schedule of spaces, the 1936 date and architect Andrew Mather, the Haworth Tompkins appointment, the operator search and contact, and the quotes from Alexander Arnold.
• Former Odeon Regeneration Project, report to Cabinet, 12 March 2026 for the up to £7.5m capital estimate and its breakdown, the £1.8m of risk and contingency, the £1.5m to £2m from the Business Rates Pool, the £1.1m strip out, the £450,000 design budget, the £5.95m still to be approved, the £111,000 and £81,000 revenue forecasts, the 150-200 capacity as it then stood, the Victoria ward designation and the Bradford Live comparison.
• Ashford Borough Council Cabinet minutes, 12 March 2026 for the resolution, the recommendation to full council and the exchange about capacity.