£20m funding secured for new entertainment venue

We’re really excited to share this news, coming just a day after our longlisting for UK City of Culture 2029!

Music and art lovers in Swindon and beyond will soon benefit from a vibrant new entertainment venue right in the heart of the town, thanks to £20 million cash injection from the Growth Mission Fund. The money will finance the creation of a new venue in the town centre that will have capacity for 2,000 people and the facilities to host music, arts and other cultural events.

This funding will make Swindon a more vibrant place to live, work and start a business, and it will attract more investment to the town. It will also be a significant boost
to town centre retailers, restaurants, bars and hotels with the added footfall brought in by the new venue.

Councillor Jim Robbins, Leader of Swindon Borough Council, said: “This funding from the government is massive for Swindon. This administration promised the delivery of a new
theatre to kickstart growth in our Heart of Swindon vision and today we are delivering on that promise. The entertainment venue sends a really clear message to investors that Swindon is on the up and now is the time for them to invest.

We’ll be working at real pace now to get the designs confirmed, construction started and the new venue open.

“The development will also allow us to build on the strong history of theatre in Swindon, started by GWR workers and developed by the great productions at the Wyvern Theatre,
which will remain open until the new venue is up and running.”

As the plans have been worked on in the background for some time in order to secure the funding, it’s hoped that detailed plans will be complete in 2026, with construction beginning in 2027 and the venue opening at some point in 2028. That should be just in time to support our bid for UK City of Culture 2029.