Margate Winter Gardens gets £4m funding boost

Margate's iconic concert hall has been closed since August 2022

An iconic concert hall on the Kent coast has received £4m from the local council as the search for new management continues.

The Winter Gardens in Margate closed in August 2022 when its former management firm - Your Leisure - handed back its lease to Thanet District Council (TDC) following financial losses.

The council said the £4m cash injection is "desperately needed" to attract potential new operators.

Carved into a cliffside, the venue opened in 1911 and in its heyday it hosted major acts such as The Beatles and Laurel and Hardy.

The funding had been allocated to the Destination Dreamland project from the government's levelling up fund, but was rejected by Dreamland's owners in February.

Thanet councillors approved the reallocation of the funds at a cabinet meeting last week, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Thanet District Council leader Rick Everitt said everyone was "quite excited" that the money had been reallocated.

It comes after previous cabinet reports cited "a financial gap" as a recurring theme raised by potential new operators.

The local authority said there had been one formal expression of interest in running the venue as "a number of interested parties".

The Beatles and Laurel and Hardy performed at the Winter Gardens in its heyday

The Winter Gardens is considered a major part of Margate's cultural landscape by many performers.

In 2017 BBC Music named it "one of the most beautiful gig venues in the UK".

The ailing concert hall needs extensive works to be completed before it can be used properly.

The council's Conservative group leader Reece Pugh said: "I really welcome the £4m from the Dreamland project [that] is now going to be going towards the Winter Gardens.

"It's really encouraging that we can make something good of that and it provides a lot of the funding that I think is desperately needed so we can find and operator to take that on."