Resolution in sight for Sherborne House . . . but arts centre in limbo

THE future of a Sherborne House looks closer to resolution as West Dorset District Council considers a multi-million pound project for its restoration.

But the arrival of a planning application to revive the building has raised new questions over whether it will be financially viable to retain a centre for the arts at the former stately home.

Redcliffe Homes bought Sherborne House, parts of which date back to Tudor times, in 2008. It has submitted plans to develop it as a mix of commercial office and gallery space.

Documents accompanying the application indicate the developer wants the house, expected to be remodelled by the summer of 2012, to become the site of the most desirable offices in Sherborne.

This week John McQueen, a spokesman for the developer, said: "We've got a couple of hot leads from local companies who want to use it as their headquarters."

Nigel Jones, of the Yeovil branch of property company Chesterton Humberts, which acted as a consultant for Redcliffe Homes, reported significant interest in the offices, including from a major insurance company which aspires to use it as its base in north Dorset and south Somerset.

He said: "I believe that when the offices are available, there will be little difficulty in finding immediate occupiers."

Sherborne House gained a reputation as a centre for contemporary arts in the years after it was converted from Lord Digby's School for Girls, which closed in 1992.

Sherborne House Arts, which ran the arts centre until its closure following the sale two years ago, consulted with Redcliffe Homes throughout the development process with a view to returning to the building following its refurbishment. The submitted proposal lays out office space on all three floors, with a dedicated gallery space on the ground floor leading out to a sculpture garden.

Also included are second-phase plans to build an extension to the gallery to provide a purpose-built space for the Elisabeth Frink archive and sculpture collection.

This week, however, Andrew Stooke of Sherborne House Trust, said a question mark still hung over whether the requirements of Sherborne House Arts and Redcliffe Homes could be reconciled and what proportion of the renovated property would eventually be used for an arts centre.

He said: "Redcliffe Homes is absolutely keen to get a maximum return on its investment, and will be generally looking to get market rates for rents likely to be above and beyond anything which Sherborne House Arts could conceive of paying.

"What we're still negotiating at the moment is whether they will give us a general concession on the lease. We're running through the options.

"The bottom line is we need to reach a solution which will be sustainable and work for the next five to ten years.

"The ambitious goal is that the arts centre will be restored to public access. The complicating factor is we've never had a proper lease in the house and we need some sort of security with regards to our future there.

"The project has not moved as quickly as we had hoped. The energy and momentum has fallen away. In one way that's a good thing, because it has brought about a completely different perspective on what sort of arts provision we can hope to offer, given the opportunities we have and this current, evil economic climate."

"I'm optimistic there will be an exciting outcome. It's unlikely that Sherborne House Arts will not be involved in some way in the future of Sherborne House.

"It might be that we take a modest footprint in the house to begin with, and expand depending on how successful that arrangement proves over the next few years."