Drive launched to stop theatre venue sell-off

A MAJOR campaign is being launched to halt the sell-off of a theatre building which has been a fixture in Edinburgh for more than 35 years.

Theatre Workshop, which set up the arts venue in Stockbridge in 1974, moved out of the building last year after losing the bulk of its public funding.

The venue had been a mainstay of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with veteran theatre directors Gerry Mulgrew and Andy Arnold among those to stage productions there.

The city council, which owns the building in Hamilton Place, is being urged to scrap the planned sell-off of the building, for around 800,000, in the next few weeks.

However the local authority insists it has a duty to sell surplus property "as quickly as possible".

Campaigners have vowed to take to the streets to raise support for moves to revive an arts centre in the building, which has a 150-seat main theatre and 55-seater studio theatre.