Place Culture’s plan for a new arts and community hub adopted by Wirral Borough Council

The Floral Pavilion in New Brighton is a much-loved waterfront venue. Built in 2008 by Ion Developments and designed by Ken Martin—once a young jobbing architect at Liverpool Playhouse—it still bears his playful, controversial “mushrooms,” forever tied to his early CV.

Ken’s mushrooms @ Liverpool PLayhouse 1968

To call it spacious and well-appointed is an understatement: its sweeping public areas would be the envy of most theatres. The challenge, however, was to maximise its community impact, particularly around New Brighton’s place-making agenda—while also delivering savings for the local authority and finding a governance model that could thrive.

Repairs and renewals alone we costed at £2.9m. We therefore explored asset consolidation across the town, particularly where investment needs overlapped. Councils have a narrow toolkit for cost-cutting—price hikes, reduced hours, stripped-back maintenance—but in theatres, where income is diverse and market-sensitive, these moves quickly become self-defeating.

Hence the growing appeal of co-location and new delivery models as drivers of resilience, growth, and renewal. Libraries, too, were obvious candidates for rethinking: nationally, visits have fallen 52% since 2010, lending is down 63%, and many sit in outdated standalone buildings with poor transport links. Wirral spends £3.2m annually on library services, but the estate underperforms.

We conducted a root-and-branch financial review of the Pavilion’s successful work—spanning conferencing, theatre, and music—and then tested whether co-location could enhance its business model. Theatres typically lack steady daily footfall; regular, predictable use can be monetised if planned well.

The community upside is equally important. Our report recommended an integrated arts and community hub, with design interventions in the foyer and shared spaces to house a new library, youth services, public health, social care, and children’s services alongside the theatre. The proposal promised greater relevance, stronger commercial performance, an uplift of 130,000 visits, and significant asset consolidation.

Across the sites, the project could safeguard essential services while saving £418k per year, supporting meanwhile New Brighton’s growth with 250 new homes, a 90-bed hotel, and other developments.

Wirral Borough Council adopted our recommendations today in full and is now developing an in-house business case ahead of commissioning architectural studies.