Dudley Hippodrome demolition gets green light

The building has been closed since 2009

Dudley Hippodrome is to be demolished after the government rejected a request to consider saving the venue.

Campaigners and the Theatres Trust want the 1930s building to be kept and are against council plans to build a university centre on the site.

Councillors approved demolition plans last month, but campaigners asked the government to review the decision.

Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council said on Thursday it had been told the government would not intervene.

The venue, which has not staged a live performance since 1974, and closed in 2009, has hosted acts including Laurel and Hardy, Marlene Dietrich and George Formby.

Dave Homer, from the campaign group the Dudley Hippodrome Development Trust, said it was now in touch with Historic England about getting the building listed after 1930s artefacts had been found intact inside.

He said Art Deco mouldings and steel windows "which were deemed to have been lost" in 2011 during an inspection had been uncovered and photographic evidence had been submitted to support the claims.

"There's one final hurdle now, to see if it can be listed," he said.

Stars Laurel and Hardy were among the stars to perform at the venue

The local authority said it had received £25m from the government to build the university centre, which would be operational by 2024.

The development will include a campus and provide higher education courses for the health sector.

But Mr Homer said the group was disappointed to hear the office for the secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was not going to intervene.

"We thought we had provided enough evidence, but they've deemed it not worthy of being looked at," he said.

Councillor Simon Phipps, cabinet member for regeneration and enterprise, said it had been a "long, drawn-out process, but we owe it to the people of Dudley and students of the future to get this done".