14th April 2010

WEYMOUTH: New look cafe-bar for Pavillion

A NEW café could open in Weymouth Pavilion foyer by the end of May.

The fresh facility forms part of recovery plans for the Pavilion which also include using the site as a new home for the seafront Tourist Information Centre.

The foyer will be remodelled to include both new café-bar and TIC facilities, members of Weymouth and Portland’s management committee were told.

Councillor Ian Roebuck said: “This is not a guarantee of success but to do nothing would be a guarantee of failure.”

He urged the committee to back several Pavilion recommendations including one to give the manager “the flexibility he deserves”.

Members also supported postponing further work to develop trust status for the Pavilion until the complex was considered able to deliver an affordable and sustainable trust.

Councillor Brendan Webster said he backed releasing the TIC seafront asset and moving the TIC to the Pavilion foyer “so they can join forces to mutual benefit”.

Councillor Peter Chapman said: “I have no problem with handing the Pavilion over to a trust, but my understanding is that a trust would not be interested until the fabric of the building is sorted out.”

But Councillor Ian James said: “I am dead against moving the TIC which had 200,000 people through its doors. If we put it in the Pavilion people will not go there.

“We are on the Titanic again, just re-arranging the deckchairs. The TIC should be at the hub of where people go on the seafront. Leave it where it is and don’t use it to prop up the Pavilion which is failing.”

Councillor Geoff Petherick said the TIC was actually being subsidised as much as the Pavilion.

Councillor Christine James backed the TIC move, said buses could be encouraged to drop people outside the Pavilion and added that the TIC building could be used as a centrally located mobility scooter hire business.

Members then backed the Pavilion recommendations including the cafe and TIC measures.

PHOTO: Impression of how the new café-bar will look